Behind the Mask
by Lady Viola Delesseps
Summary: An attempt at merging Dumas' novel "The Man in the Iron Mask", the movie, and historical facts and rumors regarding the man behind the mask. You know the story. If you do not, may I suggest reading on and becoming immersed in a tale of betrayal, secrets, love, war, and strength of heart found in the most unlikely places. Read Author's Note in Chapter 1 for info regarding text gaps.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is something I wrote just for fun a long time ago, so forgive the erratic style and many typos. I intended to rewrite the entire story, basing it heavily on the movie version, but there are some gaps here and there. I just thought I would post it for fun and for your entertainment ;-) God bless! -V.

The moon was silent and still, pushing back the shadows in the courtyard of the ancient French castle of Saint-Germain. It was not alone, however, in it's attempts at light, for the sun would soon rise and the light of many candles mirrored in their sconces shone out from the open doors of the royal bedchamber onto the balcony, filtering through the wrought-iron scrollwork into uneven-eery patches on the ground.

It was in early September, 1638, and the young musketeer patrolling the entrance to the courtyard grounds shuddered as he heard a muffled scream, then nearly jumped out of his skin as his relief tapped him on the shoulder from behind.

"Ah, there you are." He gave a nervous laugh. "I was beginning to wonder."

"Did you not hear the sounding of the watch?"

"I heard it not. This last hour I have heard only–" he stopped and nodded as a long moan, distorted by the cool night wind reached their ears.

"Ah, yes. If you pray, de Guiche, direct your prayers heavenward on the queen's behalf tonight, and for the child to be born alive, and for it to be a dauphin. As it is," De Guiche's face convulsed as another groan, pitching to a shriek came from the royal bedchamber, "Eheu! –I thank heaven it was not allotted to me to be a woman and endure that."

"It is for us to endure blood and steel. But not to pray."

"Would you not join with the great Abbe d'Herblay, Aramis, the priest and musketeer we all revere? No doubt he is there tonight praying for her majesty, who has not carried a child alive to full term in thirty-six years of marriage to the king. Do we not all want to be like one of those intrepid three men he was one of years ago?"

The young musketeer stood up even straighter. "I shall emulate Captain d'Artagnan. No one less."

"Less." The relief snorted slightly at the young Count de Guiche. "Well said, though, for we do all idolize him. I was merely placing the goal at a more attainable level. Come now, retire– I take your place."

Saluting, de Guiche hurried off into the shadows, the silhouette of his plumed hat and full cape disappearing into the night that was already beginning to flee as the bells of the village rang out the six o'clock hour.

After the sun had risen in it's full splendor, the dazzling light of the crystal-reflected candles in the royal bedchamber seemed less radiant, as their service was no longer needed; they were not, however, extinguished, for all were focused on the royal woman in her time of great agony. Anne of Austria lay on the royal bed, her long dark curls falling freely over the pillows as her whole body convulsed and the royal doctor knelt at the side of the bed, his hand on her shoulder to keep her from forcing herself upright in each thrust of intense pain when it was not yet time.

"Your majesty," soothed the lady in waiting who sat on the opposite side of the bed, stroking the queen's hair gently away from her sweat-moistened brow, "All will be well, just a few more minutes–" Perronnette stopped as another scream broke from Anne's clenched white lips.

"You said that... five hours ago–" Anne wheezed, gripping with one hand the fingers of her favorite maid, and with the other, clenching a great fistfull of the bedclothes, which the doctor rapidly began tugging away from her trembling form as she cried out once more.

Meanwhile, in the royal court, Louis XIII paced back and forth, swatting at courtiers who dogged his steps in the most annoying manner. "_Allez-vou-en_, all of you!" he barked, muttering, "I am like a honey-pot, plagued with flies. I said, _allez-vou-en_!" He turned on his chancellor, whose long curly wig nearly touched the marble floor as he obediently bowed and backed away, followed by the other court ornaments. Given the relative privacy he desired, he yielded to the urge to participate once again in the queer habit of talking to himself he developed through his lonely, disease plagued years, preferring hunting and the making of war to socializing and the making of love:

"All these years, at last," he paused and gave a tubercular cough, but straightened, refusing to let his own body recognize by his posture that he was a very ill man, "I swore I was finished with her after I did my part, as much as I hated it, and she still could not provide me with an heir. Ah! That accursed night at St. Maur-des-Fossés when my apartments were not furnished at the Louvre and I was forced to be with her again on account of that accursed rainstorm... I was finished with her after the treason of last year1and yet, I cannot understand all of this. It must be a gift of God to secure my succession. And yet–" he sighed again and gave a monosylabal cough, "I do not like the way she looks at that Sicilian2. But she is too pious... too Spanish..."

His musings trailed away as he leaned against a pillar, when suddenly, another cry was heard, of a markedly different quality than the preceding cries. The King started for the stairs, and mounted them, reaching "the Sicilian" himself at the top.

"How is her majesty? The child?" he asked after greeting him coldly, a fact Mazarin noticed with some trepidation.

"It is a little later than the doctors expected..." he began, but Louis XIII exploded,

"Thirty-six years of fruitless union? A little later than we allexpected!"

Mazarin folded his lips tight and said, "Your majesty, the queen is not doing well– she is very weak. She has been requiring someone to support her in this last hour to remain upright at all."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean you have to hold her in your arms yourself," grumbled the King, beckoning to one of his wife's ladies in waiting– if his memory served him aright– Marie de Hautefort, who was lingering outside the door of the chamber.

"I shall be happy if the child is saved. You yourself, madame, can be consoled for the mother." With that, he turned and retired to his chambers and sat down to his early luncheon, for it was nearly eleven o'clock.

In the royal bedchamber, behind an elaborate screen were crowded the royal advisers and surintendants, whispering in suspense

"His majesty will be most consoled if it is a dauphin; I hear he is quite distraught about the state of his wife," related one in a whisper, while another said,

"You know the queen prayed day and night for it to be a girl. She has a lonely life with such an aloof husband as His Majesty."

"Tsh! Listen!" The first speaker grabbed his comrade's brocaded arm and clenched it, repeating, "Listen!"

1 Treason of last year: corresponding secretly with her brother, Phillip IV of Spain, which was strictly forbidden as the two countries were technically at war with each other.

2 The Sicilian: the future Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian (Giulio Mazarini), the man chosen by the current Cardinal Richelieu to succeed him, thought by modern experts to have very likely been, in fact, the biological father of the child who became Louis XIV. Another possible candidate for the questionable paternity (since Louis XIII's abilities had been tried and found wanting) has been suggested to have been none other than Captain d'Artagnan, but this is most often dismissed as a product of fiction, though we know from a similar affair Anne had with the British Duke of Buckingham that this was not entirely impossible.

The sound of Anne's groans had taken on an even more strained quality, and as she gasped for breath, her lungs completely expended, the doctor murmured,

"The head is born– the arms– it is a boy!" His last exclamation took the form of a triumphant shout, but it was cut short by the high-pitched cry of the new-born heir.

Before anyone could stop them, the courtiers exploded out from behind the screen to get a glimpse of the baby, privacy not being those at any court, at any time or place's main concern. The doctor cut the cord that connected the child to his mother, and held him up for all to see, wet and shining with birth, and crying lustily.

"He seems to be such a tiny thing," whispered one of the surintendants. The man at his elbow suddenly turned and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" inquired the first in alarm, fearing suddenly that his treason in pronouncing the dauphin puny in his first minutes of life would put him on the scaffold, but tossing the long gray curls of his wig over his shoulder, the adviser said,

"I am going to bring the news to the king!"

"No, I shall!" several others exclaimed, and in a matter of seconds, the room was vacated by the advisers.

The doctor, with the assistance of Dame Perronnette, for the other lady in waiting that was present, Mademoiselle de Motteville, had retired with the courtiers to be certain the information was conveyed accurately, washed the infant and alone on the bed, Anne drew a trembling breath and was about to attempt a smile for her newborn son, when another stab of pain, like the previous surges, hit her, turning her sigh into a shriek of pain.

"What is it, your majesty?" Perronnette inquired, alarmed, leaving the dauphin to the doctor and hurrying to the queen's side. Anne sank back from where she had sat pivoted on the edge of the bed and gasped as Perronnette, in a shocked whisper said,

"Doctor–!"

The doctor, hearing the terrified tone in her voice, turned and quickly lay the infant, who was now whimpering quietly wrapped in a large blue velvet blanket embroidered with golden fleur-de-lis in the elaborate cradle and hurried over.

"Your majesty," he began in a reassuring voice, beginning to tell her that she should not fear, she was quite out of danger now, but he stopped short, his face growing white as a sheet. Suddenly, knelt before the queen, and snapped,

"Perronnette! Bring another cloth– quick. It's– another...!"

He stood from delivering the second baby– also a boy– and a grave look passed between the waiting maid and the doctor. Anne, laying back in exhaustion upon the bed did not notice the doctor whisper,

"How do we tell his majesty? This one was born first." He indicated the dauphin in his cradle with a gesture, and Perronnette nodded.

"But how do we know that he who makes his first appearance is the elder by the law of God and of nature? Which is the heir?"

Perronnette washed the babe in silence and she stood, wrapping him up as well, but in an ordinary piece of cloth, as the royal blankets could only accommodate one dauphin. She grew pale at the look of hard resolve on the face of the man. He said in a voice of stone, turning his back on the maid and the infant, and looking at the newborn prince lying asleep in his cradle,

"There was only one. This is the heir– Louis XIV of France."

. ~ . . ~ .


	2. Chapter 2

The Abbé d'Herblay, or Aramis, as most people knew him, sat as silent as a mouse in the gallery of the majestic chapel at Saint-Germain. The candles all over the room were cold in their brackets and shadows pervaded the scene, adding an air of mystery to the already dark and deceptive deeds that filled the day since the hour a second child– a second prince– had been born.

A single candle illumined the altar where a priest was performing a ceremony; a marriage ceremony. Aramis shifted in his seat and removed his plumed musketeer's hat and thought how it should have been himself performing the service, but that he had been ordered to take the child and his two caretakers away, and every possible provision had been made for breaking the links in this chain of sinister events; thus, the same individual could not perform two tasks if it could possibly be avoided. He ran his hands through his long brown hair, now marked here and there with gray, recalling the tonsure that had long since disappeared when he thought it prudent to retain the soul of a priest, but the appearance of a musketeer.

Maid Perronnette stood in the gown she had worn all the day, and the doctor wore the suit he had worn the same length of time as they were pronounced man and wife, and reminded that they were bound to secrecy, otherwise they would all be instantly sought out and dealt with. Aramis had risen during the final rites and descended the stairs, reaching the altar just as the priest reiterated:

"You can live in safety, peace, and plenty, as husband, wife, and child as long as you forget what is past. _Cela va sans dive_, if you ever are so unfortunate as to breathe a word of the truth to each other, the boy, or any other soul, it is your death sentence. This did not happen." Perronnette began to cry softly, and the doctor said sharply to her,

"Hush, woman, there is nothing about which to weep. Behold your husband, and your son. We will be happy."

Aramis thought the doctor was doing rather well for never having seen Perronnette, the priest, the child, or himself before this day. He turned to Aramis, watching as he took an oblong basket from the shadows and shouldered it.

"No one will be left in France who knows the truth, for Father Belles is about to take his vow of silence in the abbey of St. Maur-des-Fossés. That leaves only myself and the queen mother. I will tell no one, and her majesty has been told that the second child died. You will be provided for, but allowed contact with no one if you do not do as you have been told. Come, a carriage is waiting."

Aramis resisted the sudden urge to peep inside the basket and behold the babe, and strode with a ringing step out of the side door of the chapel and into a cobbled courtyard, the doctor following on his heels and his wife, Perronnette, following, weeping softly a few paces behind them. They climbed into the dark shadowy form of the waiting carriage, and Aramis gave the driver one word: "Away," and they clattered off into the night.

The carriage bore them southeast across France, and then a boat rowed by a silent oarsman took them on to Ste. Marguerite, a smaller island past the imposing island fortress of Belle-Sur. The man, the woman, and the child were put ashore, being told they would find everything they needed in the large castle-like manor house and it's surrounding gardens. Aramis returned to shore, the boatman retreated back into a portal beneath the silent fortress if Belle-Sur shining ominously in the moonlight, and the carriage returned to Paris, bearing a hastily scribbled note from the woman to her majesty the queen. It read:

"_Your most excellent majesty,_

_I beg of you not to forget my most loyal devotion, my love to you, and the injustice done to your poor dead babe, who's allotted time God alone knew and will keep a secret until the day the books are opened. Let you remember the interests of France, and grant me, in your remembering, but one request to soften my exile with him who is now my husband, since our banishment from court on charges of corruption and gossip. He would we live at Ste. Marguerite, just out of sight of Belle-Sur, but I would not wish this for myself and any children the Lord shall give to us. If it please your majesty, I would you give orders to have us take up our residence at once at Noisy-la-Sec. He will listen to no other persuasion. Forget not his service to your gracious majesty, as well as my own._

_"__Your Humble Servant,_

_Madame Perronnette de Cinq-Mars._"

The reply came at once, in Spanish. "Be it so. [Signed], Anne of Austria." Duly, they were removed by the boatman from Belle-Sur, and took up their residence at a nearby village, the tiny place mentioned by Perronnette in her letter.

. ~ . . ~ .

The days blurred into weeks, which in turn fled away into months and years at Noisy-la-Sec. The forgotten babe had grown into a healthy four-year-old child with light brown hair that reached past his ears where it twisted into irregular waves and ringlets. His eyes were round and a bright blue, and he was a rambunctious child, playing with the village children at the very moment, unbeknownst to to Perronnette and the doctor (called fondly in a childish voice by the lad whom she called "Phillippe"- "Monsieur my father,") when the four-year-old Dauphin of France was christened.

At the Louvre, dressed in a suit so heavily embroidered with silver that it completely hid the rich blue of the original velvet, the young monarch strode without knocking into his dying father's chamber, flipping a curling hank of brownish-blond hair behind his ear.

"How does this morning find you, my son? And what is it you are christened?" wheezed the expiring Louis XIII.

The young heir blinked his blue eyes with a perfectly sympathetic expression as he gave one of his small hands to his father and said sweetly, though inwardly he couldn't stand the sight of the man– but had been schooled in duplicity and masking his feelings ever since his early fear of his father, which had been replaced by a perfectly disguised hatred– even at such an early age, "I am called Louis XIV, father."

"No, no, my son, not yet. Not XIV yet. I am still the king of France." He coughed a long ragged gurgling cough and pressed a gold-broidered handkerchief to his lips, removing it stained with blood. "You are Ludovicus Magnus–Louis le Grande Dauphin."

Smiling and nodding, the young prince adjusted his father's pillows and took his leave, saying he was going to find Georg and François3, pausing in the hall to relieve his conscience somewhat through a disgusted grimace and scrubbing his hands on his breeches, muttering,

"I shall be king when he is dead– nay, I am king _now_. L'etat cést moi!"

. ~ . . ~ .

Georg and François: George and Francis Villiers, sons of the English Duke of Buckingham, raised with Louis XIV.


	3. Chapter 3

Philippe danced back and fourth from one bare foot to the other. The ground was cold, but the scent of spring was on the breeze, and the five-year-old didn't care.

"Madame!" he called in excitement. "Monsieur, my father! A messenger!"

True, a coach had clattered up through the village, stopping, to everybody's astonishment, before the house of the well-educated highly-bred gentleman, the mysteriously sad woman, and their cheerful young son. A man dismounted from one of the horses preceding the carriage which bore the royal insignia, and approached, looking first, with apparent shock upon the freshly scrubbed face of the lad, and then with an expression that clearly said, "I couldn't care less".

"Is Monsieur at home?" the man inquired of the lad, not looking at him. Phillippe didn't seem to notice. He was staring with round eyes and an open upturned mouth at the large plumes that ornamented the man's soldierly hat.

"Yes, he is within. Who are you?" he piped.

The man flickered a glance in his direction."I am the Bishop of Vannes." He turned and barked to the assembly of curious villagers, "All of you, return to your homes. At once!" He instinctively reached under his cape as if to grasp a sword, but the villagers had fled without need for further demonstrations. Phillippe looked on with wide eyes at the war-like air of the prelate.

"Please bring your– father–" he hesitated as if choking on the word, "–and mother. I need to speak to them; a message from her majesty."

"Her _majesty_, Monsieur Bishop? The _queen_?" squealed the lad. He raced inside and soon drug out the man and woman, one by each of their hands, jumping from foot to foot on the chill ground.

Upon seeing the messenger and the coach, the doctor's face visibly blanched, and he scolded in suddenly tremulous tones,

"Phillippe, how can you stand to be out here bare-footed? Go back inside at once."

Perronnette placed a quick hand on her husband's arm.

"But you cannot order–"

"Hush, woman. My son must obey."

"But don't you respect–"

A look silenced her, but she murmured nevertheless, "I was just thinking..."

"Woman, you are always thinking, and things you ought not." His voice was harsh, but his eyes grew soft as he looked at her terrified face, and placed his hand over hers upon his arm, the most tenderness he had displayed since the unusual night of their marriage.

The bishop observed through this that they were quite strangely respectful to their son– for parents, even without Phillippe's:

"Don't be cross, Monsieur. I'll go inside, though you've never spoken to me that way before, and I hope you don't again soon. Monsieur Bishop, were your parents this good? They are the kindest of people." With a quick kiss on Perronnette's hand and a grin for the doctor, he scampered inside and banged the door after him. At once the doctor exclaimed in a whisper,

"You told him who you are?"

"No matter." The bishop shrugged. "He will soon forget." But I bring you word from her majesty. Here." Aramis handed the man a heavily embossed gilded message. Breaking the several seals, the doctor read the scroll, and his face paled again.

"What is it, monsieur?" Perronnette asked, drawing closer and reading:

"You must do whatever the bearer of this _ordennonce de comptant_ says." And below it was the signature of the female sovereign. The doctor raised his head.

"What does this mean?"

"It means," the bishop said evenly, "–you must remove yourselves from this place." He drew nearer and lowered his voice. "While the child was yet young he could pass as your son, but now it is clear he is in no way related to either of you. Besides, even I cannot deny– someone would assuredly recognize his resemblance to–"

Perronnette sucked in her breath, turning to her husband. "Were they identical?"

He sighed and passed a hand over his eyes. "It was impossible to tell then– but they were twins. Bishop?" He looked wearily at Aramis who glanced for a fleeting moment at the face of little Philippe pressed against the window admiring the horses hitched to the carriage, and pronounced in a voice as still as death,

"They are the same."

Phillippe tapped on the window, and the sound of the small fingernail jerked Perronnette and the doctor out of the heavy gloom into which this news and their impending doom had cast them. He said loudly through the glass, his breath making mottled foggy patches,

"My shoes aren't anywhere in here– I cannot find them. May I come out again and see the horses?" Perronnette shook her head and the face disappeared.

Aramis withdrew a few steps and said,

"You must go to live at a country manor not far from here. You will be secluded, but well-off. Here is the way." He withdrew a rolled piece of coarse faded paper from his pocket, containing a rough map of the nearby French countryside.

"I cannot afford to escort you there at this time. Best remove yourselves quickly and quietly. Or else–" he placed his hand meaningfully in the folds of his cloak upon his left hip where a sword likely could have reposed. That same moment his eyes met Philippe's as he again came to the window, but his mother bid him cease with a gesture and the blue eyes were gone.

Aramis sighed and told himself this was the last act of barbarity– they would be forgotten by everyone once at the country manor, including himself. It would be welcome absolution.

. ~ . . ~ .

Inside the carriage, Madame de Motteville narrowed her eyes, and then gasped. She had been occupied in conversing with her majesty, but as soon as Aramis moved aside on the doorstep and she saw who he was speaking with, she stopped short and inhaled sharply.

"What is it?" inquired Anne of Austria, staring in surprise at her lady-in-waiting's pale face as she stared fixedly out the window.

The queen leant forward herself to have a glimpse of whatever it was that had shocked her serving maid so, a the same time repeating,

"What is it, Madame?"

The door banged behind the lad Aramis had been speaking to– Anne smiled at how the back of his head reminded her of her own son, whose hair curled just like this boy's stuck out over the collar of his plain shirt– as a man and woman, presumably his parents, emerged.

Anne furrowed her brow slightly at seeing the profile of the bearded man; he looked vaguely familiar. The lady had not turned, and as her back was growing stiff, Anne settled back onto the carriage's upholstered seat with a sigh.

"You were saying?"

"That boy!" Madame de Motteville turned with eyes wide. "Did your majesty see him?"

"No– no," Anne waved a hand. "I did not, but what does it matter? Country lads, I know are ruddy and often pleasing to look at, but I have enough more refined ornaments at my court. Now, you will please continue with your narrative about the fêté at– why, whatever is the matter, Madame?"

"The lad, _ma foi_, looked the very image of–"

"The very image of what, a young god? Pouf! I have just invited the young Charles II and his family to court for the summer, he is nearly the same age as Louis. Now if you would like to see a young god, then behold him as he dances, and turn to country garçons no more. Now please– proceed!" Anne said, slightly irritated.

Madame de Motteville finished the account of several different festive events she attended the previous year which he majesty intended to mimic this season, and all was forgotten, except by the lad who pressed his face to the window as the carriage rolled away.

"Driver," the queen spoke as she opened a small window and put her head out; unbeknownst to her, Phillippe watched with delight as the red and black ribbons in her dark hair swirled in the wind, and thinking she was a very beautiful lady, "Ask the bishop why I have been transported to this village." The answer came momentarily.

"They are to whom your order extended– you shall send them letters as often as you will to regard to education of their son, since it is under the orders of yourself, as I have thus used your signature, to have them removed beyond the reach of appropriate civilization." The answer seemed to satisfy the queen, for she sat back and the ride continued in silence.

Shortly after that, the refined gentleman, the melancholy lady, and their son departed the village and were heard of no more. It was noised about that she had relatives in Comtat- Venaissin, or that he had fallen into favor with du Vallon and were removing themselves to one of his estates, which was in Provence, but it was never suspected that the cause of all this great to-do was the brown-haired little boy riding on the back of the wagon laden with their things, waving a cheerful, if uncomprehending goodbye to his playmates as the village of Noisy-la-Sec faded into a thing of the past.

. ~ . . ~ .


	4. Chapter 4

. ~ . . ~ .

The wagon crept slowly over the moonlit ground as the house of the country estate came into view.

"Are there none at all to attend us there?" murmured Perronnette sleepily from where she reposed in the back of the cart, half sitting, half reclining next to Phillippe who had sprawled on his back in slumber.

"Nay, we are to be alone with the boy," came the doctor's response in a voice that made it impossible to determine his feelings.

"You are such a stoic!" exclaimed his wife, at length. "Cannot you find some way to prevent us from going into such exile?"

"Exile?" came the rejoinder. "We shall be well provided for, be it alone."

"Ay, but we shall never leave it– we are nigh even now! Devise some way for us to escape such a life for this boy!"

"Hist, woman, you know is it impossible!" the doctor's voice returned. Perronnette burst into tears.

"You are only afraid," she sobbed in bitter scorn. "You are as nerveless as this young one," and she fell to caressing his sleeping form and murmuring fond foolish things into his slumber-deafened ear.

"Hush, we are here even now," the doctor soothed, stopping the cart and turning. "You will wake the boy. He will never know the outside of this place– must you make it harder for him?" He climbed down and walked to the rear of the cart.

"Nay," sighed Perronnette, wiping her eyes and smoothing back Phillippe's hair, placing a kiss on his brow. "But he is making it harder for all of us."

"He does not know," the doctor said, coming around and taking the lad in his arms. "He is a beautiful and intelligent child– 'tis a pity," he did murmur as the moonlight fell upon the dozy features. Phillippe stirred for a moment, but then was limp again in the doctor's arms.

"Let me carry him," Perronnette whispered, tearily regarding the threshold. "He will never come out again."

"No," the doctor said gruffly. "_Bêtise_, he is too great a weight for you, have you forgotten that his sixth birthday is tomorrow week?"

"I had hoped to forget," sighed the woman, and, taking their possessions contained in a trunk and a few bags, entered the lonely manor house that would make up their world.

The next few days were a joy to Phillippe, and bittersweet to watch for the doctor and Perronnette. On his sixth birthday they gave him several small gifts, and the years rolled quickly by until he was a tall lad of fifteen

On his fifteenth birthday, the Perronnette and her husband gave Phillippe a large red leather book gilt in gold. His eyes grew wide when he saw it, and he said,

"Monsieur– for me?"

"Of course." The doctor smiled, a rare thing for him.

"You may copy your lessons in it, draw in it, write in it, anything you like," Perronnette added with a misty smile, for she was endeavoring not to cry.

Phillippe kissed both their hands, and said, his blue eyes bright– "May I have an hour in the garden before the noonday meal to write in it?"

"Of course," the doctor said, "But after that you must not neglect your lessons– we have yet today to see your Latin verses, your mathematics, and your fencing lessons to completion."

"I recited my Latin verses to Madame this morning," reminded Phillippe, "And am I not to study the map you showed me? I should like to know someday if all those far-off places are real," he added, running out the door and into the courtyard.

The late summer sun shone through the leaves of a fruit tree under which Phillippe seated himself. Opening the large volume, flipping a piece of light brown hair over his shoulder, and dipping his quill, he began to write:

_Sept. 5, 1653_

_Here I shall begin writing of my life in this pretty book. It is so large I know not what I will have to fill the pages with, but I mean to write all that I see and do in it, so that is will be a history, such as those that men leave after they vanish from the earth._

_I do many things each day. I study, learning mathematics, a little geometry, fencing, writing, and recite my lessons to Monsieur, my father, in the library, which is one of my favorite rooms. My father is very learned and grave; my mother very kind, but often sad. I have many times found her in tears when I have finished reciting, and I ask her, "Why are you not pleased that I know my Latin verses so well?" (as I did this morning) and she would reply (as she did this morning) nothing at all, only weeping all the more. Then my father came in and fell into a great rage, and stamped his foot and told her she was little more than a baby, and to cease her tears at once. _

_I do not know why she weeps. My father is gruff, but not often unkind to her, and our house is so large and spacious and she possesses many nice things and lovely gowns that she ought not ever to be sad. I told her so this morning, and she said that I am but a child, and do not understand, and I could never understand even if I were grown, for see, my father does not. I slipped my arm about her and begged her to tell me the cause of her sadness, but she would not. Afraid I would make her weep more, I betook myself to the library and saw my father standing idly and staring out the window that overlooks the courtyard and the garden. _

_I see him standing there even now as I sit and write, watching me. Anyhow, I left off entreaties, as I did with my mother, and, as I am fifteen as of this day, and nearly a man in spite of my mother's remonstrances, I told him, man-like, to tell me at once the reason for Madame's griefs. He looked startled, and almost afraid when I spoke so imperiously, with my head thrown back and my feet wide apart that I said, gentler, "At least tell me what I can do to comfort her unhappiness." "That is impossible," he said, and he said it so sternly that I was frightened in my turn._

_I am beginning to think that this sort of existence is not at all natural, for just yesterday I was shown a map of all the far-off points of France (which is where Monsieur, my father, tells me we live; our estate is but a part of it) and I wonder if everyone lives as we do. We surely live well– a beautiful new suite of rooms is to be mine as of today. Monsieur, my father, says that now I am older is it more fitting for a man to have his own apartments, and I can no longer occupy the room next to my mother's. In a way I am glad for a new suite of rooms, and yet in a way I am sorry. Madame is certainly not glad, for she wept and embraced me this morning as my things were being moved, and called me her poor child, at which my father rebuked her severely._

_I can hear him speaking now in the rooms above me– a messenger has just arrived with a letter. I am never permitted to see or hear anything about these letters that come intermittently. I will leave off writing more for the present, as it is nearly time for the noonday meal._

The said meal was partaken of in relative peace, though when Perronnette expressed a desire to see what Phillippe had written in his journal, the doctor said,

"Let the boy have his secrets," adding, softly, "God knows we have ours– 'tis only fair."

Phillippe caught this, and after an energetic fencing lesson at which he fared better than usual, he reminded his father of it.

"Monsieur– you said at the dinner table that you and Madame have your secrets. What are they?"

The doctor looked up sharply from where he had been replacing his blunt-tipped foil on the arming rack and said,

"Forgive me for seeming rude, but do not you–"

"And that is another thing." Phillippe held up his hand, continuing, "You are far too respectful, both you and Madame, to me– even now the fact that a mere gesture of mine silenced you– you cannot be–" he paused as a flush, not of the heat or the exercise overcame his face, "–are you my father?"

The doctor struggled for a long moment in silence, and then said, without emotion,

"You are an orphan. My wife and I have raised you as our son– and we hope you love us as your parents."

"Oh, I do!" Phillippe exclaimed. "And I shall work to make you proud of me as your son–"

"No." The doctor spoke the word and it stopped Phillippe in his tracks.

"No? But monsieur–"

"Your birth has nothing to do with your destiny. Those that are born paupers have risen to share the air of royalty, and royalty–" he stopped, recommencing, "Everything a man is grows not from when or to whom he was born, but what his does with his life. Every man is bound to make for himself the fortune which God denied him at birth through the first man's sin. You, Phillippe– an obscure orphan–" he paused, then spoke quickly, his eyes fierce, his voice passionate "–have no one but yourself to look to. Nobody, except your mother and I– and that not even by our own choice, but the will of another– has taken an interest in you and no one ever will."

He sat in silence under the weight of his own revelation, breathing heavily and not looking into the blue eyes that he knew were seeking his. Finally the lad spoke.

"I will try, monsieur. And I am glad you told me. Now I love you more." He smiled, completely satisfied, and took his father's foil from under his arm, and, sliding it into the rack alongside his own, returned to the hall beneath the library which had a long row of windows that opened to the garden.

He had under his arm his journal, which he intended to write in, but the unusual amount of exercise, accompanied by the heat of the day and his profound sense of contentment combined their powers to make him drowsy. He sat down under one of the windows, his head leaning back on the low sill, the glass being opened to catch the breeze that had arisen, and while he was meditating whether or not it was worth it to fetch a quill at this moment, without knowing that he was doing it, he lay down on his side, his head pillowed on his journal, and drifted off.

He was dreaming that he, like the birds and plants lived on air and sun, flourishing in the warmth of the rays and blossoming in the magic of the atmosphere, when he was aroused by a sudden shout of woe, and the hurry of feet in the room just above him.

Phillippe sat up quickly and rubbed his face, laying his hand on the volume as he sat up, hearing his father's voice call frantically,

"Perronnette! Perronnette!"

He leapt to his feet in alarm and looked out the window– his mother was in the courtyard, looking in astonishment up at the open window to the library above. The doctor hastened downstairs and rushed by, not even noticing Phillippe's presence in the hall, still crying,

"Perronnette! Perronnette!"

She met him in the middle of the courtyard, near the well, and caught him by the forearms.

"What is it– are you ill?"

He made a wild despairing gesture and drew her over to the edge of the well, bidding her in a broken voice,

"Look– look! What a misfortune!"

"Calm down, calm down," soothed his wife. "Whatever is the matter?"

"The letter!" he exclaimed, groaning in the most alarming manner, "Do you see the letter?" He pointed frantically into the well.

"What letter?" Perronnette cried.

"The letter– the latest letter from the queen, I received it just today!"

Phillippe, from where he watched at the window felt his knees go weak. Monsieur, his father, who was continually recommending modesty and humility, in correspondence with the _queen_?

The doctor went on to describe in despairing words and gestures how a sudden gust of wind just as he entered the library carried it out the window and into the well where it had disappeared from view.

"If the letter has fallen into the well, then it is the same as it having been burned. You know the messenger burns her majesty's letters each time he comes."

"Ay, but this one contained instructions– how can I follow them?" grimaced the doctor. Perronnette said immediately,

"Write to her majesty the queen at once. Give her a plain account of the accident, and–"

"No, no, no..." the doctor groaned. "Nor will that do, she will never believe the story. And she does not know that her instructions pertain to her own–"

"Tsh!" Perronnette hissed. "Distress makes you imprudent. She writes to benefit the education of a friendless orphan. Ah, but you are right, she will think we keep the letter as a hold over her, and that devil of an Italian– Monsieur Mazarin– teaches her too be so distrustful since her husband's death. We could be poisoned at the first breath of suspicion." At this her eyes filled with tears.

"They ought to be suspicious of all that concerns Phillippe," murmured the doctor. He seemed to recover himself. "Well, it is no use standing about– one of us must at once go down the well."

They discussed which of them should go; neither seemed an especially good choice, but employing any other was out of the question, so while Phillippe watched silently from the half-shuttered window, the doctor went to get a ladder. Perronnette, upon seeing that he himself intended to go down the well, fell into a fit of weeping as she betook herself to the house, crying for his safety. The moment the door from the garden shut behind her, Phillippe knew he should go instantly to her and comfort her. But no... he wasn't to know about the incident at all, obviously, if the royal correspondence had been kept a secret from him for so long, so perhaps he had better not.

Something about the day's earlier revelations, his journal, his new thoughts, his advancing age, and now, another mystery, gripped him, and before he knew what he was doing, Philippe found himself beside the well, looking into it just as the doctor had.

Something white and luminous glistened in the brownish-green quivering ripples of the water, distorting the wrinkled paper and making it glow brilliant. His eyes became fixed on the object, and he nearly forgot to breathe in staring so intently, as the well, with it's wide circular mouth and icy cool breath wafting up from the shaft seemed to draw him in. For a moment he sighted his wavering reflection, and for that fleeting moment, his attention diverted from the letter, Phillippe looked about him, blinking; as he did so, on the back of his eyelids he seemed to see on the white at the bottom of the water characters of fire traced upon the paper the queen of France had touched.

An impulse such as that which drives men madly to their destruction seemed to shoot through his body, and Phillippe quickly began to crank down the bucket on it's windlass until the wooden vessel was even with the water's surface. Then, being very careful not to disturb the surface of the water, he grasped the rope and began to climb down, his eyes fastened on the letter which was changing it's white tint for a more greenish hue in proof that it was sinking.

He cast a quick glance upwards, and chills skidded down his body at seeing the ring of sky lessen over his head, and at feeling the chill breath of the well as he drew close to the water's surface. Strong will at last reigning over giddiness, Phillippe, holding tightly to the rope with one hand, reached with the other into the uncomfortably cold water, grasping the letter.

As he raised it from it' sinking state, the letter tore in two. With a terror-stricken clutch, he let go of the rope and his whole body plunged into the icy water, disturbing the peaceful ripples and momentarily obscuring the fragment deeper into the well. With a desperate flounder and a probing hand, he reached into the depths, submerging his shoulder and retrieved the other piece. Placing a foot into the empty bucket, Phillippe once again gained the safety of the rope with one hand. Thrusting the fragments into the breast of his shirt, he began his ascent out of the well as fast as one hand could carry him over the other; he braced his feet against the opposite side of the shaft, and, gaining the edge, he hauled himself out, shaking and streaming water.

Phillippe dashed for the cover of some thick shrubbery and, drawing the fragments from where they lay sodden against his damp chest, deciphered the faded writing enough to discover it was as his father said– and more– that the doctor himself was a man of noble rank, and Perronnette, without being a lady of quality, was far better than a servant, and that he himself must be high-born for Anne of Austria and and Cardinal Mazarin to take so earnest an interest in him, whether or not, as it seemed, her majesty knew exactly who he was.

Just then the doctor returned bearing the ladder, and proceeded to lower it into the well. Upon seeing this, Phillippe thrust the fragments back into his shirt, and, just as the doctor's head disappeared from view as he descended the ladder into the well, he dashed through the garden door into the house, a wet hand clamped firmly over his chest, and up to his chambers where he secreted the fragments under his pillow and began to strip the damp clothes from his slick trembling body.

When he finished dressing in dry clothing, he gave his wet hair a scrub with his fingertips, spraying droplets in all directions, and then, wringing out the ends with the cloth by his basin, he carefully parted it again before the mirror and tucked it behind his ears. Taking a deep breath, he went over to the window and saw the doctor, standing on the top rungs of the ladder still within the well, but looking in perplexity at the edge of the well which was wet as if a quantity of water had been slopped out of it, and at the ground below it, which was also quite damp in spite of the efforts of the sun.

Phillippe bit his lip and hoped that his father would not guess the truth. Suddenly, a tap on the door sounded, and Phillippe jumped, turning and forcing his voice to be quite normal, saying,

"Enter."

Perronnette's head appeared in the doorway, her eyes red, and she hastened to the window, saying,

"Oh, you know my apartments have no view into the courtyard– is he safe? Oh, thank heaven!" And she burst into fresh tears at seeing the dripping form of the doctor drawing the ladder out of the well. She embraced her son, but suddenly stopped short and said, looking again out the window through her tears,

"And does he not have the piece of paper? It was quite important, Phillippe, and the wind carried it into the well by accident."

He looked away. "I do not know."

She caught her breath and her hand went to his temple. "How wet your hair is! You did not take your bath so early in the week?"

"Just washing, Madame," Phillippe said, avoiding her eyes. "I was quite warm from fencing, and..." he trailed off. Perronnette looked long at him, then placed a kiss upon his brow and silently made her departure.

She met her husband in the hall downstairs, coming in wet and empty-handed from putting the ladder back in it's place.

"Do you not have it?" exclaimed Perronnette in alarm at seeing his grieved face.

"No, no, it wasn't in the well. I searched and searched. I can only conclude it is lost." He sighed, and she covered her face sobbing, as he murmured, "What shall I tell her majesty?"

"It must have been in the well," Perronnette sobbed. "It must."

The doctor suddenly stopped short and took in his breath, causing Perronnette to look up, tears still coursing down her face. "We will all be executed," she whimpered.

"Where is Phillippe?"

"He is in his chamber," Perronnette managed.

"Did you see him?" The doctor's eyes were piercing. "There is a great wet spot beside the well." His voice was heavy with implications.

"His hair is damp," whispered Perronnette; and with a sudden look of hard resolve, the doctor started off down the hall and mounted the stairs quickly, going, not to Phillippe's apartments, but to the library, shutting the door with a bang.

He did not eat supper with them, but was in a strange fit of gloom the whole rest of the evening, remaining alone, staring into the fire. Late that night the door opened slightly and his wife's voice once again asked,

"Will you not eat something?"

"Nay, I am not hungry," came the voice, husky and rough from being hours unused. The firelight played over the scene as it burned down, the embers reflecting depression in the doctor's eyes as he did not remove them from the mesmerizing flames, finding some welcome in the oblivion of thought. He heard Perronnette release a heavy sigh.

"Very well then, I am retiring, should you change your mind."

He did not reply, but his head sunk further forward on his shoulders and came to rest in his hands. Perronnette gently closed the door, and whispered to the darkness of the corridor illumined only by her single candle,

"The Lord have mercy on us all, for whatever sins we have committed to bring such a judgment upon the innocent." Mentally she went over Phillippe's every word and gesture at supper– he had seemed a bit nervous, but other than that, nothing out of the ordinary. True, he hadn't eaten much, which wasn't the rule, and then there was his hair...

She found her steps almost reverently taking her towards his chambers, where she tapped lightly on the door. There was no response.

She slowly eased the door open and crept in, seeing her son was sprawled in his bed asleep with the covers in unusual disarray about him. She stopped in her slow advance when he stirred, his brow furrowing slightly, and flung a restless hand back upon the pillow, his face appearing flushed as she looked closer.

Perronnette sat down on the edge of the bed and placed a soothing hand on his brow– it was burning with fever. She looked at his still-damp hair and flushed cheek that pressed against the pillow, and then straightened the covers about him as he again rolled over. She expected him to open his eyes at any moment, but the only stirring about his face was the slight movement of his lips.

Perronnette knew Phillippe sometimes talked in his sleep, but she never gave it much heed. Certainly fevered thoughts wouldn't be any more coherent... Her musings were interrupted by a faint whisper.

"The queen must know..." he said thickly, his throat convulsing as it half-vocalized the words. "She told my father..."

Perronnette leaned closer, feeling his hot breath on her cheek as his murmurs faded into indistinct whispers. Her eyes dilated once the thought suddenly came to her what of Philippe must know. Without hesitating she rushed at once into the library. Her husband turned upon her re-entry.

"What is it?" he intoned wearily.

"Come at once! Phillippe has a fever and is talking in his sleep– he may tell us about the fate of the letter." Her heart was beating fast in her excitement. At once the doctor was on his feet, the fire forgotten, as together hurried down the corridor, and swiftly but silently entered the lad's room and sat down on opposite sides of the bed.

He remained still for some time, and then his lips began to move again. The doctor exchanged glances with Perronnette.

"I will put it... in my journal–" he whispered, pushing the covers clumsily away from his fevered body with sleep-slackened pawing motions, murmuring, "The water was so cold..." and then tugging them back up again, furrowing his brows at the resistance he met with on account of Perronnette's and the doctor's sitting on the edges. He sighed as he gave up.

"Under my pillow is still so wet..." he said at length, repeating full-voiced, "It is still wet."

At a look from his wife, the doctor slowly began to ease his hand underneath the pillow upon which his head lay, and his face paled when his fingers touched damp pulpy paper. He drew forth with a trembling hand the letter fragments. Perronnette gasped and he gave her a look that clearly said, "_If you wake him–_"

"We must leave him for now," the doctor managed softly, regarding the faded writing with dismay.

"Write to her majesty. Give her a plain account," said Perronnette, but this was unneedful, for the doctor wrote a message relating the whole of the matter to the most likely person he could think of– the Bishop of Vannes– including the remains of her majesty's letter, and sent it the first thing in the morning.

. ~ . . ~ .


	5. Chapter 5

. ~ . . ~ .

The king was seated in his council chamber with his back turned toward the entrance door. Before him was a mirror in which, while looking over his affairs, he could see at a single glance those who came in.

He did not seem to take any notice of the entrance of Aramis, but continued to casually look over his papers, and when he finally turned, he lay his hand over the opening of the letter he was at that moment perusing; the fine long lace which half-concealed his hand served also to hide much of the writing on the bull from curious eyes.

"Monsieur Aramis, it is not you?" he said, turning and rising. As he did so he placed his handkerchief over the paper his hand had previously covered.

"What have you to say to me?" He stood tall in his regal costume, though he was only fifteen, and his long light brown hair was elaborately curled and hung in ringlets both before and behind his shoulders which he kept perpetually thrown back. His mouth twitched slightly as his icy blue eyes coldly surveyed the priest and musketeer before him. "Speak."

"I was told that a letter was delivered this morning which contains a message for either myself or the queen mother, but not for you, monseigneur."

"Not for me?"

Louis XIV turned and stood behind the table overspread with papers, standing just before the mirror, because he knew that in looking at him Aramis could not help but catch a glimpse of his own reflection in the mirror, and men's own reflections, he knew, while talking could distract them from their purposes. He should have known it would take more than this to disgruntle the former musketeer. Aramis stood his ground, and Louis felt compelled to repeat, "That cannot be so."

"It concerns a paltry matter of a family near rural Noisy-la-Sec."

Louis raised his eyebrows. "Interesting. And why," he continued, abandoning his pose behind the table and advancing as he spoke, "–Why should not the paltry matters of France belong to her king?"

"This is a matter for me–"

"Monsieur," interrupted Louis, stepping forward, and clasping his hands behind his back as he spoke, leaning forward slightly in a mockingly obsequious manner, "You still believe you are living in an age where kings were, as you so often complained of my father, under the orders and at the discretion of their inferiors." He drew himself up. "You seem to forget that a king owes an account of his actions to none but God."

"I am forgetting nothing, sire,you are behaving as if this were an affront to your dignity."

"You have no right to judge my decisions."

"But I do have a right to judge my own, and this, I think, qualifies as one of them." There was a silence after this energetic rebuttal, but Aramis plunged on. "If you object to delivering it over to me, your majesty, then do me the honor of sending it to your mother."

The king slowly moved his chair to a position behind the table and picked up a letter that was lying atop the bottom of the document upon which his batiste, embroidered with the royal fleur-de-lis and a rising sun– his symbol– along with the Latin motto "_Nec pluribus impar_" reposed. He deliberately seated himself and, thrusting his dagger through the seal, unfolded the letter, his blue eyes looking significantly at Aramis over the top of it.

Two warped faded fragments of paper fell to the floor. Sliding them towards the priest with his slippered foot, young Louis XIV rose, not taking his eyes from Aramis's, and, handing the letter to him, immediately vacated the chamber.

. ~ . . ~ .

The sun shone dazzlingly bright down upon a carriage that clattered up to the manor house, stopping in a dashing manner, a cloaked figure letting himself out nearly before it had completely come to a stop. The horses heaved and snorted in their harnesses, moving restlessly as the figure approached a door in the garden wall, pulled the bell-rope, and then knocked loudly almost without a pause.

"Anon!" came the voice of the doctor, momentarily opening the door and beholding the messenger.

"An order from the queen." The man bowed.

The doctor was slightly startled to hear the word _order_ instead of the expected _message_.

"A-are you to wait for a reply?" inquired the doctor, as he unsteadily took it to hide his distress.

"Her majesty requires obedience, not replies," answered the man haughtily.

"Very well then– just a moment," the doctor responded. "Will you not step within?"

"I shall await you in the carriage," came the bewildering response. The doctor hurriedly retreated behind the garden door and tore into the message, calling,

"Perronnette, come at once!"

His eyes passed over the contents of the short letter, and, folding his lips together, said as his wife appeared,

"I knew it."

"Knew what? What is it?" demanded Perronnette, taking it from him and reading aloud:

_"__There was a time when I knew you, and your son, and for a long while I was deceived into thinking that you were dead, but now it is quite certain I was misinformed. I know who you are, and who your son is– _my_ son. I deem it necessary now, for your safety, as well as his to remove yourselves to the Ille de Ste. Marguerite, just out of sight of Belle-Sur, as originally planned. This time no petitions will move me. All provisions for your continued health and happiness will be made, but you must never make attempts to leave the island, or this will most certainly be the last provisions for your life."_

Perronnette looked up with a stricken face. "When did this come?"

"But now– and I believe from the messenger's manner that we are to leave with him at once to be conducted to Ste. Marguerite."

"Now– _Ciel!_ But Phillippe has still his fever, surely they will understand–"

"They will understand nothing. We shall live out our days upon the island, and perhaps it is better, he is sadly confined here."

"You think a stretch of barren ocean much better?" The doctor was inwardly surprised that Perronnette did not begin to cry, and then suddenly realized her pale patient face was for his benefit. He touched her arm almost tenderly.

"Come– we will have few things to gather, as all we wish shall most likely be provided. I shall fetch Phillippe."

Phillippe lay on his bed with his journal, busily writing, but pausing now and then to sigh and rest his aching head back upon the pillow, his face flushed with fever. He looked up as he heard the bell at the gate ring– a rather rare sound– and did not resume his writing, for shortly afterwards the door opened and the face of the doctor appeared.

"Phillipe," he said as he sat down the satchel that was in his hand and began placing a few articles of clothing within, "Phillippe, you must get up."

"What are you doing, monsieur?" inquired Phillippe in surprise as his father too his journal from his lap, shut it, and lay it atop the few other belongings, fastening the satchel.

"Come, put on your shoes, we must go."

"Go?" Phillippe said in alarm, his mind never thinking of leaving the one place that made up his whole world. True, he could spout off the names of far-off places like Paris and the Palatinate, or even further to Germany, Spain, and Switzerland, but even if he believed those places were real, he did not make the connection that they could be gone to; he was terrified at the thought of stepping outside the gate of their manor house, subconsciously indulging in fears such as he might fall off the edge of the world in doing so, and indeed, it would be falling of the edge of his world, and quite traumatic. He repeated incredulously, "Go where, monsieur?"

"We are being moved to Ste. Marguerite," Perronnette said bravely from where she stood in the doorway, a second satchel containing hers and the doctor's things upon her arm, and knowing that he would have no idea where or whatSte. Marguerite was.

"We are _being_ moved?" Phillippe furrowed his brow. "By whom? And whence? And why?" he inquired as he allowed himself to be sat upright upon the bed and have his shoes laced upon his feet.

"We are moving," simply stated the doctor, looking firmly at Perronnette when she arose. "Can you walk, Phillippe?"

"I believe so," he murmured, half-incredulously looking about him as he leaned upon the doctor's arm. "I must say goodbye!" he suddenly exclaimed as they reached the top of the stairs.

"Goodbye? No, my dear lad, we are all going," said the doctor, giving his arm a tug as Phillippe twisted about to look back upon the corridor they were leaving.

"No– goodbye to all the rooms... the library, madame's parlor–"

"That is all nonsense," the doctor said as they descended the stairs, Phillippe weakly gripping the banister and the doctor's arm, his cheeks aflame with fever.

"But I cannot say goodbye to the dining room? The passageways? The hall? Oh, I cannot bear to leave the garden without seeing it one last time!" he pleaded as they reached the bottom of the stairs and passed through the hall, Perronnette sadly shutting each tall window's shutters as they passed by.

"Nay, we have not the time to go back to all of the rooms. Say goodbye to the courtyard, we are here now."

Phillippe's blue eyes filled with tears as he was led pas the well, the fruit trees, all the places he loved best.

"Goodbye," he whispered to the whole of the country estate as the door in the garden wall was shut and they were ushered to the carriage which had all it's blinds drawn. Phillippe looked about him like a cornered rabbit once beyond the walls at the countryside spreading in all directions around them, but the doctor's arm was firm in his as they were ushered into the carriage.

The man looked first in shock at Phillippe, who managed a weak smile, his fatigue overcoming even his fear, apologizing for his condition, assuming that the unusual flush on his cheeks accounted for the stare. The man did not reply but tore his gaze away, looking furtively about as if someone could be watching them, and with a quick glance out of the tail of his eye, shut the door.

Phillippe sighed wearily and slumped into the corner of the fore-facing seat, shaking with chills as the tears he had strove to hold back trickled fourth; in a swirl of unknown emotions, their magnitude heightened by his fever, he took his first– and last– look at the exterior of the manor house. He was confused and frightened, wondering where they were going, and why, and the first part of his question received something of an answer when he heard the messenger command the driver,

"Toward the Ille de Ste. Marguerite."

But he still did not know what that meant, or why, and could not ask as the carriage jolted forward and he slumped miserably in the corner of the seat as they rattled along. Only then, Perronnette, seated next to him, began to cry. The doctor remained in the rear-facing seat, staring stolidly ahead, his face impassible, and he remained so until the sun had set and the shadows obscured it from view. Then a sigh could be heard, but it was difficult to distinguish from whose lungs it proceeded.

They rode in darkness for several hours before the carriage suddenly stopped. Perronnette stirred from where she had been dozing, and Phillippe's head lolled from the corner where it had been propped over to one shoulder as he emitted a faint moan in his fitful sleep. The door was opened with a loud click and a squall as the man unceremoniously announced,

"Out."

The doctor, taking the two satchels, climbed stiffly out to the ground and saw as Perronnette roused Phillippe that they were near the shore, the moonlight shimmering on the surf as it rushed up upon the pebbly ground and then ran chuckling back as if pleased with itself for making such a good show, its exultation only to be cut short when another small surge of the tide overtook it and ran it in the opposite direction, sliding back out to sea, only to be slapped up again.

A small rowboat was beached not far off, and with a gesture, the messenger indicated that they were to go to it. Perronnette, supporting the ill and barely awake Phillippe trembled when the grim silent form of the oarsman lifted his head and wordlessly extended a hand to help them within.

Phillippe was suddenly awake as his foot found the bottom of the boat, and the water standing there began to seep through the leather of his shoes, causing his teeth to chatter and his head to pound. The doctor put his cloak over the lad as the oarsmen pushed them off, and they made their way in the tipsy little vessel indirectly past a large gash of rock thrusting itself upwards from a sea renowned for it's beauty in that area, seeming to ruin the peaceful tableau as the fortress carved from the solid rock loomed eerily over them while they passed beneath it's shadow.

Then they were past it, and beyond they began to see a range of wooded heights and a desolate little shore rising from the sea. There was nothing to indicate that the island was inhabited. The hills were covered thickly with trees, upon one side the brow of a cliff steeply dropped off, and the beach below gave way to breakers which caught the moonlight as they rolled heavily upwards, lapping their way back.

The oarsman deftly swung the boat about, and they skirted the island gleams of something whitish gray, as if stones or bricks caught the doctor's eye through the trees. They rowed silently into a shadowy cove, and proceeded up a narrow inlet, the shores on either side showing lush green grass beneath strange shrubs of almost tropical appearance crowned with bright hued blossoms, distinguishable in the moonlight, that they dipped into the glassy water.

Phillippe stretched out a trembling hand to pluck one, but the boat slipped on past carrying it beyond his reach, and he turned to Perronnette, murmuring, his face now pale in the blueish light, his eyes dilated,

"Are we in the heavenly country, madame?"

"No, 'tis only an island, a bit of land rising out of the sea, the sea being the most water you could imagine. Be silent now," she said as they bumped into a small wharf. The stream had suddenly diverged to their left and high above them on a rocky imminence stood a castle-like estate house, long and low, rather than loftily built. It's windows caught the moon's silvery light, but a shadow was cast along the whole of it's dark front.

"Here you are." The silent oarsman spoke for the first time. "You shall find everything you need in yonder castle. Supplies will be brought here to the dock regularly, but you are not to approach the messengers. Ascend now, I must return."

He helped Perronnette and Phillippe from the boat, turning his eyes away from the lad as he did so, a fact the doctor observed, but Phillippe was feeling too terribly to notice. The doctor alighted and spoke for the first time as well.

"Thank you." The boat disappeared in the shadows as they began their climb up a gravelly path, in many places almost stair-like in it's steepness.

Phillippe did not notice any of the interior of the castle's furnishings, their feet falling noiselessly upon thick carpets in various places, and here and there was a cushioned bench or a chair covered with rich embroidery, casting dim reflections of it's shining threads in the polished inlaid wood all about them and upon the floor. No pictures hung the walls, it was true, at least no pictures containing persons, but it was all lost upon Phillippe; that the windows of the apartment into which he was half-carried by the doctor were covered with heavy damask, and the beauty of the coverlet upon the bed in which he was laid, burning up with fever was also lost upon him.

There was a great armchair drawn up before a cold fireplace, and a small table containing a vase of flowers by the window– indeed, all of the castle seemed to be furnished with great magnificence. Below in the moonlight reposed a great garden courtyard of roses, carefully trained, but Phillippe only slept on in confused fevered sleep as the doctor and Perronnette settled themselves into their strange new residence at Ste. Marguerite.

The next morning Phillippe's fever had been so inflamed by the previous day and night's activity that he did not stir from his room or his bed all day, but on the third day of their residence upon the island, he went about the house and explored the rooms.

There was a great many of them, and all richly furnished. He found his mother's rooms much to his liking, and finally came upon her in the boudoir, and approached her, saying,

"Madame?"

"Yes, Phillippe? Ah, you are up, 'tis a mercy. But your face is so pale!"

"Ay, but I had need of moving about. What a grand place this is! I had no idea the world existed thus beyond our country house."

Perronnette started at this, but then said,

"There is nothing more to the world. Only this, and the place we came from, only we and those who brought us from there to here."

"That cannot be," Phillippe said coolly, seating himself upon the settee of the dressing table. "For there must be more people in France– and in the world."

At this she paled even more. "What do you know of France– of the world?" she asked in tremulous tones. "Do you love me at all?"

"Of course I love you, madame!" Phillippe exclaimed, rising and going to her. "Why do you speak thus?"

She gave him a strange look but said, "Tell me what you know of France."

"Only this, that she must have a great many people in her, for she has a king, and that the rest of the world must contain a great many people, for they must have a king for the other king to make war against. Has not monsieur, my father, told me of the deeds of the King, Saint Louis, King Francis I and King Henry IV?"

"Is that all?"

"Very nearly."

"Do you know what king your father was referring to when he said the King?" Perronnette's face was still ashen. "Do you know who was the son of Henry IV?"

"At least I know who his successor was," Phillippe responded, wondering to what all these questions portended.

"How?" Perronnette's face blanched still further, if that was possible, wondering how it was the doctor could have been so imprudent as to relate such recent facts to his eager mind.

"By the means of a coin dated 1610, which bears the effigy of Henry IV, and another of 1612 which bears that of a king called Louis XIII, so I supposed that there being only two years in between the dates, Louis was Henry's successor and as monsieur tells me that the year is now 1653, I suppose that Louis XIII is still the King of France."

"He is not," Perronnette said in a still voice. "Louis XIII has been dead for nearly ten years. His–" she stopped short, looking at the boy before her, "–Another now reigns." She perhaps would have said more, but just then a brief knock announced the doctor, who momentarily entered.

"Phillippe!" he exclaimed with more than his usual demonstrativeness. "You are well. Perhaps you should like to see the rose garden?"

"No, monsieur," he answered, his face drooping slightly. "No, I am quite tired."

"Ah, then perhaps I shall show you the great drawing room and we can commence your lessons."

He nodded silently, and as they made their way slowly down the hall Phillippe burst out,

"Monsieur, why are we here? I thought there was nothing except our manor house, and it comes hard to me to account for this."

"I cannot tell you," the doctor said, turning away.

"You cannot!" Phillippe groaned. "Always you cannot. Very well. I shall stop wondering." With this resolution, his pale face became very placid and his thoughts were somewhat diverted for the next few days by his lessons, and by architecture, drawing, painting, science, and sculpture, by which things the doctor endeavored to direct his mind.

Phillippe found great joy in sculpting, and was, if not exactly skilled, certainly not bad at it. He disliked drawing, but found painting to his liking, as well as architecture. At least it seemed to the doctor that Phillippe disliked drawing, but one day, during his convalescence he came upon Phillippe in the immense library and he hastily hid several papers from view which contained rough sketches.

The doctor, a bit alarmed at this show of secrecy, inquired,

"What is the matter, Phillippe? Something has been bothering you for several weeks."

"It is nothing, I have much to think about, that is all."

"Much?" pursued the doctor, his doubts in no way dispelled, "And what sorts of things?"

Phillippe looked up, his eyes looking plaintively from his pale face. "Death, mostly."

"Death!" The doctor tried to hide his alarm. "And what has formed this morbid train of thoughts within your mind?"

"All men must die, and it is when they become old. I feel as if I am suddenly growing old, and exceedingly weary."

"Nonsense, you are just recovering from your fever–"

Phillippe continued as if uninterrupted, looking out the window, "I think of myself as no longer a child but a man, a man on whom the sun of life has already begun to go down." He turned his face away to hide the tears shining in his eyes, but his voice came back choked, "That is what I think about. And in thinking, I think to myself were I to go on thinking, I shall either go mad, or else I would understand a great deal. And then I stop."

"You stop?" whispered the doctor huskily.

"Yes." Phillippe turned back to him and wiped his face. "Because my head becomes confused. I will ask once more: why cannot you and madame tell me your secrets?" There was a long beat.

"It is not a choice left to us," replied the doctor at length.

"So you cannot?" Phillippe's voice sounded strangled.

"I cannot." There was another silence.

"Then, it is time for me to enact my plan." He rose as if to leave.

"Enact your plan?" The doctor rose to his feet in alarm, disbelief spreading over his features as he placed a restraining hand upon his arm. Phillippe gave a sad smile.

"Do not fear, monsieur. It is just sculpting and carving I have found a great block of marbled stone in the corner of the garden and shall fashion it into something useful. I know it will be of use soon, since you cannot answer me." Thrusting the sheaf of papers into his journal held under his arm, he departed.

Neither the doctor nor Perronnette saw Phillippe fro the rest of the day, but heard chiseling and sculpting noises from the courtyard, and out of respect for his profound gloom, did not importune upon him. Finally, he appeared in the dining hall as the doctor and Perronnette were eating. The doctor was shocked at how grave his round young face had become; he looked weary and almost aged all of the sudden. The doctor began to say,

"Phillipe, won't you join–"

"I should like you to see my work," he said, his eyebrows lifting slightly to reveal a bit of his old self. "I should like to know it you like it."

The doctor gave a look to his wife but rose, smiling at Phillippe as he did so. "Of course. What is it?"

"If you will come with me, you shall see." Phillippe took his father's hand childishly and led him from the room, down the grand sweeping staircase, and out into the rose garden.

"Close your eyes," he instructed, still leading the doctor by the hand, and Phillippe led him along the flagstone paths between the shrubs and over to a corner overhung with a large orange tree and a twining vine of roses near on either side. The doctor thought he felt Phillippe's cold hand tremble slightly in his own, as he said,

"You can open them now."

The doctor's eyes adjusted for a moment to the shade of the late afternoon garden light after the bright light of the dining hall, and his eyes came to rest upon a graceful little gothic building of white marble, no taller than his waist, standing on a slight elevation with the roses clustering about it as if it had been there for centuries. His eyes went over the artistically fashioned thing; a dome of the most graceful shape rested upon groups of clustered pillars and beneath it, the figure of an angel with half-furled wings stood with a beautiful downcast face as if guarding the structure. The doctor could hardly believe Phillipe had made it. The attitude of the angel at once struck him– it was by no means a masterpiece, but it was gracefully done, with one hand outstretched as if in warning, the forefinger of the other resting upon it's lips, seeming to entreat eternal silence for the dead buried beneath it's effigy.

"It is–" he croaked at length, "–A tomb."

"Yes, monsieur," came Phillippe's solemn voice. The doctor turned quickly to behold him looking at his work, a small smile on his lips.

"And– whose–?" the doctor whispered.

Phillippe did not look up, but said, "My own."

He knelt before it and placed a hand upon the smooth face of the stone base, upon which an ellipse of scroll-work seemed to indicate that in inscription would go within it's graceful curve. He sat back on his heels and looked up at his father.

"Here I shall lie at rest, the fever will have burned itself to ashes."

"But Phillippe–" the doctor head his own voice as if it came from someone else, "But your fever has been gone for nearly a week now.

"It will have burned out, consuming itself, and me– God grant that it be soon, for why should I live?" He bowed his head and his long light brown hair fell before his shoulder, obscuring the half of his face nearest the doctor. He did not answer– how could he? For what would he say... After a little, Phillippe looked up, his hair falling back toward his ear, and spoke again.

"I have only known one name all my life– all other men I have read about have several names. But here," he looked beseechingly up at the doctor, "I would fain bear my father's name."

The doctor slowly realized what he meant, or perhaps he didn't, for he did not know if the lad was inquiring as to his own identity, or merely his governor's. For several long moments they remained motionless and silent, as the setting sun streamed it's light across the marble effigy, and the crimson roses dropped their petals to the velvet grass, a single petal falling atop the dome on top of the tomb, fashioned in early life by a lad denied the answer to the most basic questions of his existence. The low thunder of the surf below them sounded a fitting requiem as the doctor turned and fled the garden.

Phillippe remained sitting motionless for a moment longer, his tears dropping silently to the sward, and soon once again the sound of the hammer and the stone chisel resounded through the courtyard of roses.

Early in the morning the doctor arose and stole again to the place in the secret of the early morning mist, and he half-expected Phillippe to be there as well. But the place before the marble effigy was deserted as if it's maker had already been laid to an early rest. The doctor's heart skipped a beat at this thought, and he caught his breath as he saw cut deep into the marble base by Phillippe's own hand a single word: _Eheu_.

He leaned forward and placed his hand upon the dome, his head bowing as Phillippe's had done, and no doubt would have given in to the almost irresistible urge to indulge in a bit of emotion himself, had not a light pressure on his arm stopped him short.

He turned his head quickly to see... Perronnette. "You have also seen it?" she said softly.

"Yes." The doctor placed his head in his hands and rubbed them over his face for a moment. "Yes, and I know not what to do."

"I myself have an idea that there is only one thing to do," spoke Perronnette. "I am resolved I shall tell him all, whatever the cost, as I shall have no further hand in deceiving Phillippe."

"No! You shall not, t'would do no good, he can never gain his rightful place in the world."

"But at least he will know! You have observed the unfolding of his brilliant mind, given the chance he would be bold, brave, yet he is as tender as a woman– what a ruler he would make!"

"But it is not to be though of," murmured the doctor. "We will be executed, and if he does not share our fate, would you condemn him to an existence yet more miserable knowing his true identity? And if others suspect his knowledge of it, they shall spare no pains to make it more so."

"I am quite determined," she said, her eyes shining with unshed tears. The doctor sighed as he seemed to see before him all hopes of their living out a tranquil, albeit lonely life slide out of his grasp as surely as the waves slide back out to sea, as he said,

"Do what you must. And heaven help us if her majesty hears of what we have done."

. ~ . . ~ .


	6. Chapter 6

Louis XIV was prepared to ride through the imposing gates of the Palais Royale on his way to the Vincennes forest for a hunting expedition– he was booted and spurred and carried a dainty riding whip in his buff-gloved hands. His excitement was heightened by the fact that the mount upon which he was lightly but surely seated as a groom deferentially adjusted his stirrup was new to the stables, and an intensely beautiful creature.

Therefore his irritation was great when one of the advisers who was not one of the party hastened up, calling,

"A word, your majesty!"

"Speak," he said, placing his plumed cap upon his head. The adviser stepped aside to reveal one of his mother's nun attendants in his wake, as with a deep curtsy, she said,

"Monseigneur, your mother wishes a word with you."

"I am on a hunting expedition, surely she must know that." Louis purposefully applied a bit of pressure to his mount's flanks and then jerked the sensitive beast back wrathfully to accentuate his irritability at being thus interrupted.

"Yes, sire, but she knew you could not have started yet, and thus wished to speak to you at your own convenience."

"Since when has my convenience been of concern to anybody else," grumbled the young king, ignoring his advisor in his attempts to hold the stirrup as he swung his leg over and jumped to the ground, just barely missing kicking the groom who also hovered too near for safety. He took one crunching step upon the graveled path, and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright Vincennes sun, and sighted the figure of the queen mother at the window of one of her apartments. With a blown out breath through his lips, he began striding haughtily back toward the unwelcome interview with Anne of Austria.

He passed by the guards at the doors without a word. Several courtiers at once approached him as he passed through the court, offering to take his jacket and cap and bring his shoes, but he gestured contemptuously with the quirt, causing them to retreat a few paces.

"How was the hunt, your majesty?" inquired an unfortunate who happened up just after this display. Louis surveyed him coldly.

"It has not yet begun, I wish to keep my cap on," he said as he stalked off down a corridor toward his mother's apartments. A guard at the door again attempted to take his hat, but he snapped,

"For the last time, I am leaving it on! I shall be going back outside in just a moment."

He was admitted to one of the queen mother's rarely used parlors, for she seldom entertained company, and kept to herself much of the time while her capricious son enjoyed the society of the court and watching every being scuttle to do his bidding. Anne of Austria turned from the window.

"Ah, Louis, I wish to speak to you."

"So I hear." He went to the window and looked out upon the hunting party just within the gates. He turned. "I am just about to–"

"I know, and this evening you will have your affairs to attend to, and this is something that has weighed heavily on my soul for many years now, and you ought to know, so I am resolved to confess at once to you, hunting party or no."

Louis raised his eyebrows as he turned and sat down upon a cushioned ottoman next to the chaise-lounge, his mother taking her seat upon that latter piece of furniture as he said,

"Confess? Weighs heavily? My my, I didn't think you ever sinned, which is why I could never account for your long hours in prayer and–"

"Louis! This is not to be tolerated! You shall hear me out."

He sighed. "As you wish." Anne of Austria looked long at her son as he softened slightly, or seemed to. "What is it, mother? And why have you not told me before this?"

"There as never seemed a good time to, and I finally realized there never would be, so I resolved to tell you all, nevertheless."

"Yes, tell me all," he said, his voice making it impossible to judge his motives.

"It regards two things– birth, and death."

He raised his eyebrows again and pursed his mouth slightly. "Then I wonder why you speak to me of such things."

Anne continued, resolved not to be daunted, gently removing his plumed cap and restoring the waves to the slightly flattened hair, stroking it back from his temple, "It regards the night of your birth, and the day of your father's death. Do you remember the latter?"

"I remember the first," rejoined Louis, perfectly serious in his arrogance. "I remember every moment of my royal life."

Anne's brown eyes softened as she tucked a long waving strand of light brown hair behind his ear and said, "It was at St. Germain-en-Laye. Your father sent you away in the last moments. It was a Thursday, May 14, nearing three o'clock in the afternoon. In two more hours he would have reigned thirty-three years. There were several present in the last hours, physicians who had been with him, Séguin, the doctor I have had ever since a few days after your birth–" Her face darkened at this, and Louis noticed and could not help but wonder why.

"There was also d'Ormesson, and several others, but all were sent away at the last, even the priest, for he had received his confession several hours before , even you, for you were too young to see and hear such things then, being only five."

"What things, madame?" prompted Louis, becoming weary with how slowly this narrative promised to proceed.

"I had one waiting maid by the name of Perronnette, and she was present the night you were born. She was not present the day of the King's death. There was also the doctor who delivered you that same day, whom Séguin replaced, and who also delivered–" she paused, trembling, "–your twin brother."

Louis started violently, his eyes widening. "My what?" She had his attention now. He leaned forward. "I have a twin brother?"

"Yes," Anne of Austria managed. "Your father I thought did not know, for word came from the wet-nurses that he died soon afterwards." Here Louis's face visibly relaxed and he sat back, leaning upon his straightened arms.

"And I believed he was dead as well. That night, both Perronnette and the doctor –the Marquis de Cinq-Mars– disappeared. Word had it they were dismissed at last on charges of gossip or slander or whatnot. I began, several years later, through the will of Aramis and a blank letter I signed for him–"

"Aramis? _The_ Aramis? Monsiuer d'Herblay? Bishop of Vannes?"

"The same. He had me begin sending instructions regarding the education of a poor lad near the area of Pignerol, Savoy, at a little town called Noisy-la-Sec."

Louis's color suddenly rose. "Go on!"

"I recently found out that the family was none other than my former lady-in-waiting, along with the Marquis, for they had been married, and placed in command of the care of my son!"

"Mother, _I_ am your son!" broke in Louis. He looked reproachfully at her. "Why have you not told me this?"

"I did not know all myself until quite recently! Your father only said on his deathbed that your twin was indeed alive, but being well-cared for in secret. I troubled myself no more about it, choosing to concern myself with raising you and the Duc d'Anjou, but it troubled me. I had just managed to convince myself absolved when I found out where they were living, and who his caretakers were. Through and accident he found out clues to his identity, and I thought it best to have them removed to an even more remote place."

"A prison?"

"God forbid!" Anne looked in horror upon the young king's face. "They are now living quietly and happily upon the island of Ste. Marguerite, near the fortress of Belle-Sur.

"Near the prison," murmured Louis XIV, his mind reeling in shock at all of this. He rose. "Thank you for telling me all, mother, as I trust you have. You need not trouble yourself to swear me to secrecy, I know it is in my best interests to breathe a word of this to no one."

"And now you are king and my powers of regent extend no more, what will you do about it?"

"Do?" Louis looked at her in surprise. "Why, it seems, madame, you have left me nothing to do, he is very well where he is." Feeling as if he could bear it no more, he said, "I must go now, my party awaits me," and he strode from the room, leaving Anne staring after him and wondering if she had done right to tell this to her son.

Louis XIV looked neither to the right nor to the left as he hastened back through the Palais Royale, his mind whirling with plots. A brother. Not only that, a twin– a rival. He would do what his mother had been afraid to do. An island was not enough. Neither was a prison.

He approached the group and sprang into the saddle, forcing his face to be nonchalant. "Let us go," he said, replacing his cap upon his head and brushing the plume back over his shoulder.

"Is all well, your majesty?" one of the party inquired, to which the King responded,

"If it were not I would tell you. My mother merely wished a word with me. Let us on." He suddenly caught sight of a member of his court who had joined the waiting party in his absence, and his eyes fell upon the man's shining pure white coat that caught the rays of the sun. He turned to the groom that stood nearby.

"Have my tailors make me a coat exactly like that one," he pointed.

"Your majesty," the groom risked, "Your tailors are busy enough as it is, with the preparations for–"

"You heard my orders! And I want it in two hours– by the time we return." Applying his heels to his mount, the expedition clattered out of the gates and headed for the forests.

The excitements of the hunt now held no charm for him, his mind was so preoccupied with what he heard. Before they returned to the Palais Royale that evening, he had devised a plan to hide and silence this second heir to the throne, this second son of his father's in a way that was diabolically sure. A smile crossed his face as they rode back in silence, the game wardens laden with the results of the chase.

"The hunt was satisfactory? Monseigneur is pleased about something," The white-clad courtier pulled up alongside the king. Louis didn't even look his way, but said,

"Yes." He looked straight ahead. "Yes, I am pleased." He would secure the throne of France for it's rightful heir against all pretenders and usurpers, beginning with this.

The thought never crossed his mind that this twin might be the rightful heir– and he the usurper.

. ~ . . ~ .

Despite his extreme fatigue, the doctor was unable to sleep for much of the night, owing to the fact that he knew Perronnette would be awake, telling Phillippe all. The pride in him urged him to be present, making sure in his masculine manner that the story was told correctly, every detail in place, and not full of weeping, womanwise. But this was quickly overrun by the thought that he wanted no part in their disobeying of their orders, hard as it had been for fifteen years.

He sat in one of the great chairs in the library, as he did at the country estate on a night of great distress caused by this unknowing child, gazing into the empty fireplace, deep in thought. His own past, mixed with Phillippe's, and all of their uncertain futures, thoughts of Phillippe's tomb, and Perronnette's tears all mixed with the mysteries that surrounded and permeated their existence in his wearied brain, until, at length, the doctor's head fell forward upon his breast, and despite his resolutions to remain awake should Perronnette or Phillippe need him on such a night of revelations, he slept profoundly.

He was awakened suddenly by the sound of some heavy object falling to the floor; in an instant he was on his feet, dazed and half blind with sleep, but instinctively reaching for the sword he usually wore about his waist but had lay upon the table at his side before drifting off. All of the sudden he was seized from behind, blindfolded, bound, and gagged with incredible strength and sureness.

Meanwhile, Perronnette was just saying to Phillippe,

"–And I could not restrain myself any longer after seeing your– your–" She endeavored not to cry and Phillippe put his hand upon her shoulder, his sorrows vanishing at the sight of hers.

"What is it, madame?" he asked in concern.

Perronnette mastered herself with tremendous effort and said, "I was resolved to keep nothing further from you– so ask what questions you will. I shall give you all the answers I myself know."

Phillippe's eyes grew wide at this, and he said, "Mother, I–"

"You can _see_ it, Phillippe, it's every inch of you..." She began sobbing.

"What is it, mother?" Phillippe anguished.

"If I dared I would throw myself at your feet and beg you for your forgiveness–"

"Oh, madame, you do mistreat yourself, you and monsieur must have had a legitimate reason for keeping certain things from me until I was of age to understand them," he said, touching her arm. "Do not all parents reserve that right? But tell me– who am I?"

His blue eyes sought hers and Perronnette, under their power opened her mouth and was about to say the truth to the lad when suddenly they heard the sound of a heavy fall, followed by the muffled shouts of,

"Perronnette! Philli–"

The cries brought them both to their feet. Perronnette whirled toward the door, but suddenly it was thrown open with a crash and three men, hooded in black strode into the room. Perronnette uttered a cry and looked as if she would faint, but Phillippe gripped her arm to keep her from falling. The man who seemed to be leading them said,

"Come with us. If you resist–" He gestured to the two others who stepped forward with such ferocity that Perronnette immediately fell on her knees and began beseeching them,

"Oh, messieurs, whatever it is that you want, be assured it is yours for the taking, but spare our lives–"

"Quiet, foolish woman," he barked as the two men, roughly grabbing her by the arms proceeded to lift her and drag her between them from the room.

"No!" Phillippe shouted, lunging after them, but he had not reckoned for the leader of the black-hooded men, who stepped right into his path and stood with the solidity of a mountain as Phillippe crashed into him. He waited to see if another onslaught was coming, but when the lad attempted to run after Perronnette, he grasped him firmly by the wrist and intoned,

"Do as we say, and you'll not be harmed." In trusting terrified wonder, Phillippe followed silently.

In the hallway, two more men bearing the insensible form of the doctor met the two who were dragging Perronnette. They bound her and blindfolded her, and attempted a gag, but she had already caught sight of the men and their burden and began struggling wildly, screaming,

"No! No! Leave him be, let us go!" Then she fell down on the floor and began weeping, still struggling against her captors.

"Hysterical woman," said one of the men, leaving his half of the doctor to thud to the floor, and going over to where Perronnette sobbed and kicked.

"This isn't exactly what his majesty had in mind, but 'tis to the same end." He placed a flask of wine to her lips and said gruffly,

"Drink, it will calm you."

She did so through her tears; and in a matter of moments she went through a series of violent convulsions and lay dead upon the floor.

"Better than I thought," admitted one of the men, looking up at the one who possessed the flask of poisoned wine. "That'll do for the old man as well, I should think."

Phillippe was then blindfolded within the chamber and led down the corridor, the man making gestures for absolute silence as they passed between the two unmoving forms on the floor, and proceeded down the stairs.

Once outside the castle, Phillippe followed trembling from more than the chill night air as the hooded man removed his blindfold. He bowed _de haut en bas_, gesturing for the lad to precede him and they proceeded down the steep stair-like gravel path twisting back and fourth down the embankment to the pier where two small boats lay moored. Three more men waited in the smaller of the boats, the other was empty.

"Get in," the figure said to Phillippe, who, terrified, did so without speaking, scrambling after him into the craft. The men caught up the oars as the leader and the third hooded man insisted on sitting on either side of him, gripping his arms.

Phillippe, once they were out of the cove and dipping up and down across the peaks and troughs of dark water, crossing the waves that slapped them sideways out of the rhythmic bobbing, stole a glance at the man on the other side of him. The black-hooded figure must have had some way of seeing through that hideous garb for he said,

"Don't even think about trying to escape, we are all armed, and we know you can't swim." Phillippe could only shake his head in a frightened emphatic no, and before he knew what they were doing, they were drawing up beneath the island fortress of Belle-Sur, glittering ominously in the moonlight.

Lights from torches flickered uncertainly and illumined two more men waiting in a portal beneath the prison for them, and upon seeing their cruel hard faces, Phillippe was glad the others were hooded. His feet slipped on the slimy stone as he was being pulled by the arms roughly up out of the boat. Mistaking this for resistance, they spared no opportunity to usher him with harsh speed up the winding stairs into the prison itself, spewing abuse and words of profanity he had never heard before at any hesitation or stumble.

Phillippe looked about him in horror, yet it was a wondering kind of horror, for he had seen few things in his life, and even fewer places. Suddenly, the ill-scented men dragging him along stopped as they were met by a warden carrying a pile of rags that looked fit for burning. Without any warning, his two guards suddenly and none too gently undressed him completely, right there in the corridor, and stuffed on a too-large tattered whitish gray shirt and a pair of coarse frayed brown-gray trousers, also too large for him.

Phillippe stood struggling during his whole process and when the rough cloth was finally yanked down over his bare body, his head emerging from the neck-hole, a ragged gash, panting from the ordeal, he saw the two men finger the well-made suit he had been wearing approvingly with dirty fingers. It was certainly not elegant, but it was a decent outfit, and one of the wardens mockingly held it up to his bulbous form, sneering,

"I'll keep it– think it will fit?"

The other erupted into crude laughter and Phillippe shivered, his teeth crashing together as he suddenly was shoved into the nearest room. Two men, besmeared with soot stood at the end of the cubicle before a glaring red fireplace. One turned as the other plunged something small and curved like the bit of a lock into the cooling bucket upon their entry, sending up devilish hisses of steam.

"We don't need to tell you which one," said the guard, pushing Phillippe toward the men, and folding his arms. The other leaned against the mildewing door-frame.

"Do your work."

Taking one look at the boy's face, the two blacksmiths looked at each other, and one removed the lock from the water, placing it beside other shaped pieces of iron that lay on a second overturned bucket. Grabbing Phillippe by the shoulder, he was whirled about, his arms pinioned behind him, and before he knew it he was lying on his back with his head on the anvil, his childish blue eyes staring up in terror as the men leaned over him.

Picking up one of the pieces of metal, looking like the back of a helmet, he abruptly gave a tug to Phillippe's hair to raise his head enough to shove it underneath, letting his head fall back to be half-encased in the steel. The other man grasped the frontspiece of what looked like a mask with eye slits and a mouth hole and fitted a curved grate over it, approaching Phillippe who was being held down forcefully by the other blacksmith.

Suddenly, he knew what was happening and began to struggle, screaming,

"No! No! Noooooo!"

The mask was forced over his face and his head wrenched around to the side; with several jerks and a loud click, the mask was locked on, and Phillippe was shoved to his feet. The small key was dropped into the hand of the jailer and he was ushered, reeling from the unaccustomed weight on his head up a long curving flight of worn stone stairs covered with dirt and filth that Phillippe could hardly see through the eye-slits of the mask, and pushed into a solitary cell at the top, the door clanging shut upon him.

Phillippe picked himself up from where he had been thrown, putting his hands in disbelief upon his head and his face. Then, throwing himself against the door, he shouted,

"Come back! Come back! What have I done? Why am I here?"

But the guards had retreated down the stairs, laughing with the blacksmiths, and through the barred grate Phillippe could only hear,

"... uncanny, looked just like–"

"Fool, that's what the mask– ..." as they wound down the tortuous stairs.

He slumped in a heap against the door, tucking his tattered legs up and hugging them to his chest, where he remained until the morning when he was aroused by the door begin kicked open, sending him flying. Food was deposited on the floor, and then the door shut again, as he was informed,

"This is the last time I'm waiting on you like you're the king of France or something, next time you get it through the panel in the wall." He jerked a thumb to a small metal drop-down just to the left of the door, but Phillippe didn't even see. He was stiff, bruised, and hadn't even the strength to move.


	7. Chapter 7

. ~ . . ~ .

EIGHT YEARS LATER, PARIS, 1661

. ~ . . ~ .

The streets of Paris at night are often no pretty thing, especially in times of starvation. The beggars, and those who did not think of themselves as such, but suddenly realized they were reduced to that state by the selfishness of King Louis XIV were moving about the narrow byways, living in the filthy shadows, breaking windows and scavenging for food. They fought and beat each other for a piece of bread, but they all had one thing in common; they hated their king, and all who served him.

Sure enough, around the corner of an alleyway galloped a dashing figure, his cloak flying out behind him, the royal emblem catching the moonlight, his horse's hooves clattering as he rode his horse as easily as if they were racing across an open field, not dodging through a cluttered street. He guided the horse past an angry knot of scrawny filthy people, and one hurled a shard of glass, a few threw rotten eggs, another a rock, all shaking their fists after this emblem of the monarchy, this Captain of the Musketeers of Louis XIV.

Not abating his pace, as if sensing the flying missiles without turning, d'Artagnan ducked fluidly as he kept on riding. He at last slowed his pace, his horse's rhythmic gallop breaking into an abrupt trot as he neared the Cathedral, and turned into the courtyard of a once grand residence just beside it, now used as an inn.

The courtyard was full of beggars and priests moved about, distributing what meager food they could get, and d'Artagnan received the glowers of the populace as if it were nothing of consequence, as indeed it were not to him. Though now in his mid-later life he was still handsome, erect, faultlessly loyal and courageous, and he knew he would not be a man anyone would confront in a hurry, so he passed unscathed into the inn.

Meanwhile, as glimmers of light shone in the eastern sky, a form knelt before a single candle in rough clothing, his usual vestments discarded on a nearby chair. His hands were entwined through an elaborate rosary and the distinguished head bowed over them would proclaim him to all as the Bishop of Vannes, better known by his friends as Aramis.

He closed his eyes and lifted his face to meet the sun's rays streaming through the window, his lips moving silently in prayer when suddenly the door was burst open and a massive figure barreled in. It was unmistakably the Baron du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds, as he preferred himself to be addressed.

"Aramis!" Porthos exclaimed, after tossing his coat upon Aramis's on the chair, the large garment completely obscuring the other apparel beneath it's spread. "Aramis, I am here!" He stopped short and looked at the bishop reproachfully:

"Ah, your holiness, may I ask what it is you are doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" murmured the abbé, beginning to rock slightly back and fourth as he continued his prayers.

"I have troubles," began the giant of the three musketeers, moving closer to the window.

"Don't we all?" rejoined Aramis between Latin litanies.

"So you pray?" Porthos raised an eyebrow.

"I pray." Aramis stopped and looked meaningfully at his huge friend.

"Ah." Porthos rubbed a hand over his face and began to chew disconsolately on the edge of his mustache which he twisted into his mouth. The years had done much for this musketeer, this Baron du Vallon, if only to increase his wealth which was now great, and his girth which was now even greater. He never could understand the piety of Aramis, and now said, aside, but his asides were always loud enough to be heard as regular interjections:

"Aramis, I have a very great problem." He lowered himself into a chair. "You are always welcome to me, but now more welcome than ever."

Aramis continued his rituals without even looking up.

"My misfortunes are great indeed, guess my misfortunes, Monsieur Abbé!"

The bishop looked up in exasperation. "What is it? Bad news from Bracieux?"

"No, they have felled the woods there and it has yielded a third more than the estimate."

"A falling off in the pools at Pierrefonds?"

"No, they have been fished, 'tis enough to stock all the pools in the area for years."

"Your estate at Vallon has been destroyed by an earthquake," hazarded Aramis, desperate for an answer, and not really caring if it was a good guess or not. As his friend shook his head, the worthy bishop threw up his hands in despair, out of ideas. Porthos's response came in the most morose tone of voice Aramis had ever heard him use.

"No, my friend, actually lightning has struck the ground a hundred paces from the chateau and now I have a spring there where before there was no water."

"Then what in the name of heaven is the matter?" exclaimed Aramis.

"I have no clothes," sighed Porthos, with a lugubrious expression. Aramis eyed his coat on the chair, his whole outfittment with flashing eyes.

"You– one of the richest men in France– tell me you have no clothes?" He was at a loss to understand what his friend meant, so he resumed praying. "There is more to life than clothes. Scripture tells us not to fret about what we shall eat or drink or wear." He tried to ignore the ungainly bulk at his elbow and closed his eyes again, recalling where he left off in his recitations. Porthos looked at him in surprise.

"If you can tell me anything that is more desirable to a man than his food, his drink, and his suits, then... I shall build you a cathedral."

The wily bishop did not cease his prayers, but could not resist saying,

"Forgiveness."

"Forgiveness?" There was a pause. "Well, forgive me for interrupting your holiness during prayers. Is this matins? Or paters?" He rose as if to go. "I do not remember, but I know it is not vespers. I do not know why you have to behave as if you were still in a monastery all the time. Ah, I know it is not vespers, for my mother taught me those to sing before my sleep each night when I was a child." He walked toward the door humming in a husky baritone and Aramis ground his teeth in exasperation.

Hearing a somewhat irritated sound, Porthos suddenly stopped, and apologized. "Forgive me, I forgot your prayers." There was no reply, so he approached the window again. "Am I forgiven?"

Aramis abruptly backhanded his huge friend, sending him reeling backwards, landing in his chair. Stroking his cheek, he muttered,

"I observe your forgiveness is not so desirable to me as my food, my drink, my clo–"

"Can't you see I'm praying!?" exploded Aramis.

Porthos raised a foot and kicked the bishop in the small of his back, and suddenly Aramis staggered to his feet, as Porthos roared,

"You are _always_ praying!"

Aramis grabbed a chair, preparatory to throw it; in the blink of an eye Porthos had picked up the whole table. Just then, the door opened, and a figure entered the room. He stopped just within the doorway and eyed his two old friends as they both simultaneously exclaimed,

"D'Artagnan!"

For a moment no one moved, and then Porthos, tossing the table aside strode forward and bear-hugged him.

"How are you, you skinny little pup!"

D'Artagnan laughed with what little air had not yet been squeezed out of him, and fortunately just then he was released, inhaling, and advancing to greet Aramis, who was still holding the chair. He set it down in embarrassment.

"A simple theological discussion," he explained.

"I see." D'Artagnan eyed the scene, guessing the rest, seeing Porthos's coat draped over the chair, and the abandoned rosary beads. "You are dressing very simply these days," he said, smiling at his friend's coarse costume.

"I was praying, but–" he broke off and glared at his friend.

"Bah!" said the captain. "And do we no longer write poems now, either?"

"Oh, d'Artagnan!" exclaimed Aramis. "I have long since given over those follies."

"True," replied d'Artagnan, only half-convinced. Then he got straight to business. "Aramis, the King wishes to see you," he said.

"Ah," replied Aramis, grateful to have the conversation changed. "You still serve him loyally, no? Even though the people hurl rotten garbage at his royal emblem..." He lifted the edge of d'Artagnan's cloak and sure enough, as if the prove the bishop's words near the hem reposed the remnants of a broken egg. D'Artagnan wrinkled his nose, but continued,

"Mind still sharp as ever, Aramis. The King said right away– I suggest you go."

Aramis nodded as Porthos spoke up, eager for the days of valor to recommence. "All for one, d'Arganan."

"–And one for all," he finished with a smile.

Porthos suddenly struck his forehead and approached Aramis. "_Tiens!_ I had nearly forgotten. For the poor, the ones you were praying for." He removed a purse from his belt and extended it in his left hand to Aramis. The bishop, surprised, even touched at the gentle giant's heart reached to accept the purse, but just then Porthos tossed it to his right hand and swiped with the heavy missile for the worthy bishop's head. Aramis saw is coming and ducked. Suddenly, the two old warriors were circling again.

D'Artagnan chuckled and said, "_A'dieu_, you two, I am going to visit Athos." And with a swish of his plumed hat he set it atop his head and strode from the room down to his waiting horse.

. ~ . . ~ .

The sun that found it's way through Aramis's window also leaked through the transparent patches in a mottled fogged window at Athos's cottage. Though now in his later life, the former musketeer was still handsome, gravely dressed in his dark plain coat, gray-haired, gentle-eyed, and intensely intelligent, his stiff outer demeanor masking a sea of emotions within him. The Comte de la Fère was like a father to d'Artagnan in his early griefs, indeed, he offered sage and welcome counsel to those of any age, but only would do so when asked. His noble breeding, though disguised through his glory years by a pseudonym, was not such to force his private thoughts on any.

But now, his own son entered the humble house and stood, his fingers nervously fidgeting with the edge of the sleeve on his soldier's coat.

"Ah, Raoul," Athos greeted, turning and offering one of his rare smiles as he watched his son who was thrusting his chest out before the mirror, brushing at the front of his uniform with his hands, fingering his hair and studying every angle of himself in the mirror.

He was a handsome young man, with fair skin, dark hair and dark eyes, a ready smile usually occupying the lower half of his face. Marks of elegance, intelligence and good breeding were stamped about his whole person. He was young and passionate as a human being, as a soldier loyal and courageous– we cannot say fearless– but all his other qualities were now overshadowed by this: he was in love. He smiled nervously at his father in the mirror.

"Do I look alright?"

"Of course," Athos said, rather imperturbably, Raoul thought, but he had come to understand his mysterious father's mannerisms. Athos added, his generous heart smiting him at his demeanor made stiff by years of loneliness and sorrows, "None of the ladies will be able to take their eyes off you."

"Oh, Father, say not that, you know I care only for Christine, that she should be pleased. Should I ask her when we first arrive?" His eyes pleaded for advice in the mirror. "Or... or when we're leaving? I could ask her when we are alone in the carriage, but it would be so much lovelier at the palace. I get so confused..." He trailed off, a flush rising to his cheeks, for he was young and ardent, easily swayed in matters of little consequence, yet staunchly– almost to the point of humor– proclaiming his loyalties in matters he fancied were important, for he was only in his early twenties, and Athos thought, _What does he know of life? Of love? _Aloud, he said,

"Perhaps this will help remedy your confusion." He advanced, and gently, but non-sentimentally removed a simple gold band that he had worn on his last finger for as long as Raoul could remember. When he was a child he thought Athos was born with it there. Raoul looked bewildered.

"Father– what–"

"I will tell you someday," Athos said, his heart flinching within him, but his voice remaining steady. "I want to die knowing it is on the finger of the woman my son loves."

Raoul shook his head, the movement mussing his hair, but he hardly seemed to notice as he said, stepping back,

"I cannot take it."

"You must." Athos took his son's hand and pressed the simple gold band into it. "Would you deny me my dying wish?"

Raoul embraced him, saying, "Oh, Father, but you are not going to die! A musketeer like you cannot die. Nevertheless, I shall take it, for your sake."

"Yes," Athos said, his eyes misting with tears as he held his son in his arms. They extricated themselves and Raoul took a shaking breath, attempting another grin.

"Go," Athos smiled. "Go, and bring back your fiancée."

With a grateful look, Raoul was gone, and the old musketeer returned to the window, eying the figure of the young soldier hurrying toward the palace.

Raoul nearly ran along the Rue de l'Echelle until he reached the Pont-Neuf where he slowed his pace, remembering his appearance, and the state of his breath, or lack thereof, which should be conserved for talking. He ran his hands through his forelock again, and squeezing the little ring hidden in his hand strode boldly and respectably across the bridge at the Rue Guénégaud, pausing to wave at a few of his fellow soldiers being ferried across below him.

Their laughs and gestures challenged a race as the boatman grinned and began plying his oars even faster to the cheers of the soldiers, but Raoul shook his head and proceeded along in a dignified manner, his nose tipped in the air.

He reached the other side shortly after they did, but continued to sail on by before they could alight and catch up to him, thinking only of the one whose company he desired above all others, the lovely young Christine de La Vallière, whom he had known since they were both children, and loved nearly as long.

He arrived at the palace grounds and was admitted through the Palais Royale's open gates and followed a stream of merry people around to the royal gardens as carriages deposited guests for the lavish garden party held by the King. Attractive young adults strutted about in the extravagant attire of Louis XIV's France, the men looking like peacocks and words failing Raoul at the sight of the ladies, in light of the first comparison. Some he thought looked nothing short of ridiculous, his eyes scanning the groups of people standing about, laughing and smiling and striking courtly poses as they pretended to talk with one another, but were waiting in suspense with one eye on the doors through which the King would appear any moment now.

Raoul nodded politely to the few that caught his eyes as he swept them about, and then, with a thrill of joy, he sighted Christine. Hastening over to her, his eyes were refreshed by her simple yet elegant costume and her lovely unpretentious bearing. Her family was poor since her father died, for though her mother, Madame de Saint-Remy, was of tolerable bloodline, her father was obscure and the marriage had degraded the family in the eyes of the world and his death had only served to reduce their fortunes further.

Christine's brown eyes sparkled at Raoul as he took her hands and she smiled. She was indeed quite a beautiful girl, with golden-blond hair that she wore half pulled back from her face and wound into a braided coil at the crown of her head, leaving the other half hanging free down her back and about her shoulders. Her eyebrows were dark and noticeable, her eyelashes dark as well, matching her shining eyes and forming a contrast with her light brown hair.

"Raoul!" she smiled, looking about her in awe, stunned by the richness. "Isn't it glorious?"

"Not so glorious as you," Raoul smiled back, wishing that sounded better, but taking her hand nevertheless and leading her over to where the fountains lay still. He seized her other hand and was about to speak when they were interrupted by a sudden gurgling and the water began flowing out of the fountains, pouring from a fish-like creature's wide mouth and spraying in four slender jets from it's back, misting the two lovers who silently regarded each other as the fountains all over the grounds leapt to life.

. ~ . . ~ .

Louis XIV waved a hand. "Start up the fountains."

He turned back to where his wardrobe was being adjusted by a flock of tailors, one of whom was tugging on the lace at his throat. The King was now twenty-two years of age, and would be quite handsome were it not for his total _amour propre_, that is to say, self-love, which showed through his every act. He looked at the map unfurled on a large circular table in the center of the round pillared court as one of his commanders continued with pleasure,

"Your majesty, the attacks will come completely unexpected at dawn."

"No, no– do not underestimate the Dutch, they are incorrigible." He moved away to take a quill from a nearby stand and dipped it in ink, returning and leaning over the map. "The troops will be cut off here, and here," he marked with his quill, "and they surely will be shot through here, the line will buckle. Move Fromberge and his men forward, so we will outnumber them here." He made another mark, and straightened, surveying the battle plans from above. "Yes. Send it on it's way."

He checked his reflection in the full-length golden mirror along the wall and was about to speak to one of the tailors when he saw in the mirror two of his advisers enter the room.

"Your majesty," bowed the first upon taking the lift of the eyebrows in the mirror as acknowledgment of his presence as Louis XIV swatted away the final advances of the tailors and turned this way and that, scrutinizing himself.

"Your majesty, we know it is a festive time for you before the–"

"The crimson sash," ordered Louis. The tailors brought one forward and were about to tie it about his majesty when he suddenly changed his mind . "No, the yellow."

"Before the party begins," again tried the adviser, but Louis turned on him.

"It has already begun– so why are you delaying me?" His blue eyes flashed as he looked from one to the other as the tailors finished adjusting the sash about his waist which set off the rich gold brocade of his costume. "We are satisfied, that will do," the King said, turning and beginning circle the table on his way to the door, glancing in the mirror once more as he passed.

"When will Monsieur be returning from England?"

"Not before the end of the month, sire," the captain replied.

"Very good."

"We feel it is our, our–" one of the advisers stammered, at a loss of words while being ignored, and the other jumped in,

"Our duty, as your advisers to tell you–"

"What is it?" Louis confronted them.

There was a pause, and then the adviser spoke. "There are riots in Paris."

"Riots?" Louis turned from where he had been standing as a tailor finished the final touches by buttoning the knees of his breeches and handing him his orangeish-buff tall wide-cuffed gloves. "Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, and her King has one of the grandest palaces in all the earth. Why should my people feel anything but pride and contentment?" The King turned back.

"Of course, they are content," recommenced the more collected of the advisers. "–and proud. But they are also starving."

Louis shrugged. "Sometimes the poor do become hungry. But why should they riot about it?" He began to walk toward the door, and the adviser followed, trying once more.

"Could we not distribute some of the food gathered for the army, monseigneur– there would be plenty of time to gather more before–"

Just in time to arrest the King's exit of the court, the door opened, and a guard announced,

"The priest, Aramis."

While Louis surveyed the effect of his high-heeled shoes before the mirror, the first adviser hurried forward to meet the bishop, knowing why he was summoned.

"Father Abbé," he said, in a low voice, "His majesty is experiencing some difficulties with the Jesuits, who have declared his majesty's wars are unjust and the source of public hunger."

"Then perhaps he should speak with their leader about this," Aramis replied, something flashing almost imperceptibly across his eyes, but his voice remaining quite as usual.

"Yes, but who is he? No one can keep a secret like the Jesuits can."

They had been walking as they spoke this interchange in low tones, and now they reached Louis XIV.

"Ah, Aramis," he said.

"Your majesty," Aramis bowed.

"You are a priest," he began as they walked the length of the curved wall lined with tall windows that overlooked the garden already spattered with groups of people, "–but once you were a musketeer, and I, like my father before me," he folded his hands behind him as he walked and looked at the ceiling, "–have trusted you with the gravest of missions. So–"

They paused in their advance, and Louis faced the bishop, speaking in a quiet, yet forceful way. "I want you to find out who this secret leader of the Jesuits is, and when you have, for God and for France, I wish you to kill him."

Aramis could hardly disguise his shock at this barbaric manner of dealing with state oppositions, and opened his mouth, though what he would say he knew not, when Louis continued,

"I know this is a terrible thing I ask, especially for a priest, but can you accept this mission, and keep it private?" There was a long beat during which Aramis's face took on a hardened impassible expression.

"When I discover the identity of this Jesuit rebel, I will kill both him, and the man who told me," he said at length.

Louis stepped back toward the center of the court, and raised his voice slightly, saying,

"Once a musketeer, always a musketeer, eh?"

Aramis could only nod. Louis continued in a loud voice, walking toward the table by which his advisers still hovered,

"Now, about these riots– we have stocks on the wharves right now, don't we? We can distribute that." He stood by the table and looked straight ahead of him, satisfied with his decision, yet waiting for his adviser's responses. He turned as the second spoke in surprise,

"But sire, that– that food is spoiling, that is why it was not sent to the army..."

Louis flickered an eyebrow. "Then you must hurry."

. ~ . . ~ .


	8. Chapter 8

Raoul and Christine paused as both of them instinctively moved away from the fountains to avoid the spray which was becoming unruly as a gentle breeze arose, and was beginning to take liberties with their apparel. He felt the slight and peculiar pull of her left arm as he held her hands and led her along, distinctive to the way she walked, for she had a slight limp owing to a childhood accident to her left foot that gave her a slightly uneven gait, but not enough to ruin her grace in the least; it made her all the more precious to Raoul as he always felt the accident was in some ways his fault.

He felt also the ring slide about slightly in his nervously sweating palm, then slid it into his pocket to free his hand, wiping it upon the tails of his coat and taking both of her hands in his again.

"Christine, ever since I returned, nay, ever since the day of our meeting, when you were but seven years of age–" she smiled, "I have wanted to speak to you about– about..." His heart poured out a rapturous speech, but he opened his mouth again and said only, "I love you, Christine."

"And I love you too, Raoul." She looked at him a bit queerly for stating the obvious; he was incredibly nervous but plunged on.

"I shall never be a rich man, for my father has his own plans which are, as you would expect, quite strange and quite secret regarding his estate, but you will always have my heart." He would have said more, but a slight pressure of her hands in his stopped him. She looked about them at the glorious palace and grounds.

"Then I am richer than the king."

Raoul's heart swelled at this simple selfless declaration and he longed to enfold her to his heart as he had been allowed to when she was but a small lass and had hurt herself, for a lad of fifteen could scarce be expected to remain as loyal and disinterested as he had for all these years to an adoring pet of seven. At least he yearned to find words to express the feeling, but just as he began formulating in some vague way what to tell her, they were interrupted by the trumpets blasting and flourishing, and all the people turned to behold the doors opening at the top of the steps, and Louis emerging.

As he paused for a moment at the top of the steps, along the sides of which ranged most of the eager guests of the garden gathering, he sighted a pair of lovers away from the rest, walking arm in arm toward the terrace. "_À piendre_!" he muttered under his breath. The King spoke an aside to one of his companions, nephew to the second Duke of Buckingham,

"Who is that?" Louis turned his elegant head slightly to the side in attempt to catch a better glimpse through the spray.

"It is Raoul, son of Athos," responded the young man. Louis did not turn his eyes away from the sight as he said,

"François, your tastes may run to young soldiers, but I was referring to the beauty next to him." The King's other companions chuckled at this repartée, as Francis Villiers responded with a red face:

"Her name is Christine de La Vallière, your majesty."

For another moment Louis XIV was transfixed, but then began to descend the steps between the people, smiling upon a few who were so fortunate as to catch his eye, greeting a few of the men nearest to him.

As he moved about the grounds, several people conversed with the King who sipped wine with them and told jokes, the sycophants howling at Louis's witticisms. Then he moved away from the refreshment tables and promenaded along one of the graveled paths among a crowd of fawning young ladies.

A few grids of the perfect path over, d'Artagnan presided over a small group of young musketeers who huddled near their captain as he spoke a few words to them in a low voice, directing them to their positions about the garden. At last he turned as they dispersed and approached the King.

"Your majesty," he bowed."

"Ah, d'Artagnan, what is it? Assassins falling from the sky?"

The group of ladies all laughed at this, but at a look from the sober still-handsome middle-aged captain, they moved obligingly off a few paces as Louis turned back to d'Artagnan, whose eyes were troubled.

"The plans for the chase were not disclosed to me, monseigneur–"

"I decided upon it just this morning." Louis waved a hand.

"Then you must allow me to remain near you so that–"

"You will protect me as you always have." The King gestured about him as he leaned closer to d'Artagnan's shoulder and pitched his voice just for him. "Look around at all these men's faces, how they admire and fear you, the great d'Artagnan watching over me– who in France could possibly be fool enough to try to do me harm?"

D'Artagnan looked steadily back at Louis XIV and replied,

"A fool's blade is sharper than his brain, your majesty."

Louis placed a hand on the captain's shoulder, cutting off any further comments. "Let us play a game." His blue eyes smiled, though his mouth was sober. "Let us pretend that I am King, and you are the captain of my musketeers. Let us behave as if my wish is law, and my wish, d'Artagnan," He removed his hand from d'Artagnan's shoulder, stepping back "–is to enjoy this party– as should you!" he added, moving away.

D'Artagnan shook his head and turned to Lieutenant Andre who approached and saluted just as Raoul hurried by, towing Christine in search of a more secluded spot to make his declaration. He stopped short in recognizing his father's friend, and bowed, saying,

"Monsieur d'Artagnan! It is good to see you here."

"And you, Monsieur de Bragelonne."

Raoul bowed again, saying, "I am honored that you granted my request to follow in my father's footsteps and join his majesty's musketeers." He smiled at his father's friend.

"It was done with pleasure." D'Artagnan regarded the young soldier fondly, for all of the original three musketeers, including himself looked upon Raoul as their own son as much as Athos's, perhaps because he saw in the young man a little of himself at that age. "How is your father?" he asked.

"He is well. Captain, allow me to present to you Mademoiselle Christine de La Vallière. Christine, d'Artagnan, my father's friend."

D'Artagnan took her offered hand and raised it to his lips, murmuring, "_Enchente_." She smiled and he was instantly glad that Athos's son had been fortunate in love, for she seemed not only a beautiful girl, but kind, intelligent, and everything else desirable. He turned back to the son of his old, friend.

"You must excuse me, Raoul, but I have a bit of urgent–"

"Of course, I should have known you would have much to take into account on such occasions." They bowed to each other, and nodding to the lady, d'Artagnan strode away, and Raoul took Christine's hand once again, reaching into his pocket to finger the ring. Suddenly, they were interrupted by an insistent squealing, sounding almost as if it came from some small animal, such as a piglet.

Looking about them, he sighted the little creature being borne squirming and struggling as it was held tightly in the arms of a dwarf who carried it right up to where the King stood on the steps of a small gazebo. All the guests attention was instantly had as they wondered what the purpose of this was. The little pig was a perfect specimen, being pink and clean and perfumed, a flamboyant horn tied about it's head in the fashion of a sort of headcollar made of colorful ribbons.

All the people invariably drew nearer to this spectacle as the King addressed the crowd, saying,

"It pleases us to announce an entertainment for our guests. It shall be a chase– a contest of agility and cunning!"

His voice reached over the grounds to where Raoul and Christine stood, and they both moved closer, listening as Louis continued vociferating,

"Behold, our unicorn!" The dwarf held the pig aloft, still struggling in it's colorful harness as the King produced something that had been hidden in the lace sleeve of his elaborate suit.

"Whichever of our guests captures the unicorn shall win it's treasure."

He produced a diamond the size of a walnut, deep blue and hanging on a velvet ribbon, stunningly beautiful and expensive as it's many facets caught the Parisian sunlight.

The guests all gasped at this, and Raoul turned as Christine breathed,

"I have never seen a jewel so large! Is it a diamond?"

"Yes," answered Raoul faintly, feeling ashamed of the modest ring hidden in his hand as the King hung the necklace about the horn tied upon the head of the sweet-smelling piglet.

"And now!" Louis shouted triumphantly. "To the chase, I command you all!" He clapped his gloved hands and spread his arms wide as the dwarf released the piglet.

The squealing animal ran straight up the aisle of people who bumped in to each other in their laughing efforts to seize it, turning the dignified garden assembly into a merry mêlèe. It ran right past Raoul who dove for it's back leg, catching hold of it for just a moment before it struggled free, galloping away. Raoul picked himself up and gasped,

"The pendant will be yours!" and raced off after the pig with the other guests.

Left alone on the back terrace of the palace, Christine did not notice that Louis XIV had left the gazebo after the commencement of the chase, and was now standing, watching her, on the stone terrace just above her next to the center steps. She looked about her in awe, quite unaware she was being watched, and the fact adding to her loveliness and simplicity as she gave a sigh at all the majesty around her, her eyes bright and her mouth slightly open and smiling as she sighted a small flight of white marble steps before her and began to head toward them.

Suddenly, her purpose was cut short by the fountains on the edges of the terracing starting up and blocking her way. Startled, she turned to the left toward the gazebo and took several quick steps in that direction, but a wall of thin jets of water shot up there and prevented that as well, almost trapping her on the terrace. Not noticing Louis standing on the steps of the palace behind her and twisting the rim of an empty brazier-like brass urn upon the long stone arm of the steps at his side, she wandered toward the only venue left open to her, a lush green path that opened into a secluded courtyard with a high hedge and a flagstone path running about to the right side of the palace. Louis smiled.

She was alone, when just then, from an opening in the hedge the piglet rooted through, it's ornamental horn getting caught for a split second on a few twigs, but coming free as the twigs snapped. The diamond was still about it's horn and it tossed it's head as if to rid itself of the weight between it's eyes, trundling off with subdued grunts.

Christine looked after it and then rounded the corner of the palace where she was startled to see a round fountain, and beyond it, the King standing beneath a spreading tree. He advanced toward her.

"Your majesty," she curtsied low, and when she looked up he was quite close, and he was smiling.

"Christine, is it not?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. Speechless, all she could do was nod. Louis said slowly, not taking his eyes off hers,

"I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I believe the excitement of the chase has made you even more beautiful."

On the opposite side of the hedge, from between the trees, d'Artaganan watched the unfolding scene as the piglet wharted by, it's head bobbing rhythmically, stopping with a confused half-grunt half-squeal when it found itself at a dead end. With a deft movement, d'Artagnan caught the animal's leg and lifted it with the sureness of the farm boy he once was in Gascony, the pig remaining quiet and comfortable in his hands as he strode to the opening in the hedge and set it free again, knowing it would still be sought by the other guests.

Meanwhile, Christine was still speechless as the king continued,

"I understand, you are not accustomed to these surroundings. But that is easily remedied. One such as you would fit in well as a lady-in-waiting to Henrietta of England. She is coming to court before the summer is out, you know."

"Your majesty is very, very kind," she began, "But I am engaged to Raoul, or will be, when he manages to ask me. I could not begi–"

Louis advanced even closer. "You would choose a soldier– who has not even proposed– over a King?" It seemed a sincere incredulity, as if such a thing were beyond him. "You know you are beautiful– your soldier must have told you, but how could one such as he appreciate true beauty? He could not."

Christine was embarrassed at this, and also a little insulted, the result being she felt the color mount to her cheeks, but said not a word.

"You blush?" Louis raised his eyebrows again, but his voice was still smooth. "You do not wish to look beautiful for your king?"

Her eyes suddenly went still as she realized his meaning and stood motionless as he extended a hand and touched her cheek. The only sound was the soft music of the fountain.

"I can only be faithful to my heart," she finally managed, frozen, her voice barely a whisper as his hand found it's way down to her shoulder and there rested as he met her eyes and said,

"But how faithful is that heart to you?"

He moved slowly around behind her and was about to touch his lips to the side of her neck when the sound of a footfall on the sward made her jump with a small cry and turn to see a ragged man approaching along the wall of the palace. His eyes glittered hatefully from a face that was haggard, thin and dirty, his cheeks hollow and his form beneath the filthy clothes gaunt, all together an alarming spectacle. But what made Christine's heart stop was that she saw in his hand was clenched a knife.

"Monseigneur!" she cried as his eyes took in the sight and he froze, helpless. The man continued in his advances, and Louis pressed Christine with his own body back into the portal of a servant's side door as the man hissed,

"Murderer! Feed your people!" His final words he repeated escalating to a shout as Louis leapt backwards, crushing the breath out of Christine against the corner of the door and the wall as the man jumped, falling towards the King, his knife extended.

D'Artagnan, from his vantage point behind the tree leapt forward, and, flinging his sword from it's scabbard, sent it flying end over end through the fountain's spray and into the back of the assassin, interrupting his fall and bringing him bleeding to the stone of the doorstep at their feet.

Both Christine and Louis were speechless with shock as the man gurgled through his agony,

"Your people starve...! Feed–" Suddenly, the King came to his senses and leaping forward, drew his own dagger and cut the assassin's throat to stop the offensive words. Christine took a few faltering steps backwards as breathing hard, his mouth open, Louis turned, and bracing his hands one either side of her pressed Christine against the palace wall and said, his face close to hers,

"Are you alright?"

Before she could answer, several musketeers led by a few guests, hearing the commotion, rounded the corner at a run, among them, Raoul. He took in the scene in shock, the King, very close to Christine, _his_ Christine, who looked terrified, unable to move from her position against the wall. He hastened up, saying as he did so,

"What happened?"

His exclamation caused Louis XIV to drop his arms, and pull his face away from her's, his eyes last, and the moment he did so, Raoul put his arm about her and hurried her off, out of sight, murmuring to her as she covered her face.

The King gestured toward the dead assassin as d'Artagnan's sword just then found it's way back into it's sheath.

"A pitiful madman, nothing more." He looked for a long moment at the son of Athos hurrying the beautiful young woman off out of sight, and then turned to his guests who were regarding the dead man in astonishment and consternation.

"Come, let us continue the chase. Where is our unicorn?" But soon they followed their king's example and all was forgotten except by Christine, who was so unfortunate as to turn and look over Raoul's arm just as the King, leading his guests reached the corner of the Palais's exterior, and he gave her a long look so full of envy, caprice, and passion that she trembled, fear striking her heart at more than the bloody corpse of an assassin.

The picture that Raoul came upon as he rounded the corner was imprinted on his eyes, and returned every time he looked into Christine's frightened brown orbs.

Meanwhile, d'Artagnan glared at the group of young musketeers that came rushing up to him.

"Captain!" Andre began, his eyes filled with admiration. "You are the best–"

D'Artagnan couldn't even listen, so he snapped, "Shut up. Where were you, imbeciles? Certainly not here, protecting your King, you left the dirty work to your captain! This is your King's life you guard, and it was almost lost through your complacency. What if I hadn't been hovering about, waiting to do your duties? Be assured I won't be the next time! Then where will you be? Where will France be?" His eyes flashed. "Now, back to your posts, and open your eyes this time."

He stalked off, leaving a group of very ashamed young musketeers to direct the servants as to the disposal of the body.

. ~ . . ~ .

The prison of Belle-Sur was just as gloomy and terrible a place as it was eight years ago, with the hideous possibility that it might be just a bit worse. It was nothing short of horrible, a fortress full of dungeons where prisoners lay in their own filth, shadowy corners where jailers trifled with unresisting captive women, long twisting corridors winding deep into solid rock lined with grated cells through which prisoners whimpered or moaned in their madness and misery.

Up a long winding staircase to a single cell by itself the jailer went, high up within the jagged rock jutting up out of the sea, the colorless fortress prison. He opened a small metal door, sliding the panel to the side, and thrust in a greasy hand which clenched a hard mound of rock-like bread.

A long thin hand with delicate fingers, though terribly dirty appeared and grasped the food as the keeper's shaggy head blocked further view into the cell.

"You dead yet?" he said, with bored cruelty. A voice replied, sounding somewhat muffled,

"No, Keeper." The voice held no trace of resentment, and when the jailer turned away and began shuffling back down the filthy stone steps the prisoner looked out of the opening. Then it could be seen what accounted for the strange hollow quality of the prisoner's voice; his head was encased in an iron mask. A mouth hole provided for eating, drinking, and speaking, though not amply enough, and other than that only the eyes were visible as he held them to the opening, and they were blue and childlike.

But the keeper, muttering drunkenly to himself, seemed to remember, for he toiled back up the stairs and slammed the panel shut, blocking the terrifying sight from view, both from within and without.

The prisoner turned away with a sigh, speaking to himself:

"I wanted to ask him what sort of day it was. But perhaps it is a bad one for him." He set the bread down upon a worn bench, and clambering his feet which were bound up in colorless rags upon the sill of a long crack in the wall, proceeded to brace his hands and feet in such a way as to haul himself up into a narrow protruding skylight which extended some eight feet away from the cell's ceiling at an angle.

The prisoner clung his grimy hands to the grate at the top for a long moment, looking out at the narrow circle of gray sky it revealed, and then with a sigh, clambered back down again. He sat down cross-legged on the floor and began to laboriously break off chunks of the dense black bread and manipulate them through the mouth hole of the mask.

An hour or so later the panel slid open again, and the jailer's voice came harshly though, breaking the prison's habitual silence.

"Gotten water?"

"No, Keeper," the prisoner said, standing up from where he had been sitting on the floor, with something small in his lap, leaving the worn thing lying in the circular path of half-light on the rough pitted floor as the keeper said,

"Alright, I'm coming in then, go sit on your bench." The prisoner did as he was told, but said,

"You know I never try to escape."

"Orders are orders," muttered the jailer as he rattled the key in the lock, the words never reaching the prisoner's ears. Momentarily the door swing open and he entered with his perpetually inebriated lumber, saying,

"Here."

"Thank you, Keeper," said Phillippe.

Just then, not watching what he was doing, the bulbous man tripped over something and dropped the filthy clay cup, sloshing the meager amount of murky water to the floor. He cursed under his breath as Phillippe jumped to his feet, concerned.

"Look what you've done!" the jailer raged, flinging the cup at the prisoner who flinched as it hit the wall and shattered. He looked for what he had tripped on, groping drunkenly for a moment until he hauled himself to his feet, a tattered Bible in his hands.

He snatched it open, the binding cracking as he forced the cover backwards and grabbed a handful of the pages bristling up from the center. Phillippe exclaimed in horror,

"No, Keeper, it's my only book!" as, hearing the pleading in the prisoner's voice, the jailer looked squarely at him and ripped out the pages. Phillippe slowly came closer.

"What pages did you tear out?" he said softly. The keeper blinked at him.

"Eh?"

"What number, on the first page?"

He looked for a long moment at him and then peered blearily at the tiny numerals, and said in confusion,

"Two-thirty-seven."

The prisoner in the iron mask tipped back his head slightly, closing his eyes as he said,

"Two-thirty-seven: ʻ… And the descendants of Japheth are theses, Obediah, Zebulon, Hezekiah...ʼ " As he continued to rattle off the names of the Biblical genealogy the jailer gawked at the pages in his fat hand.

"You've... memorized...?"

Phillippe looked back at him and said, his eyes eager,

"What was the end page?" The keeper was speechless so the young man looked for himself. "Six-two-one: ʻ…though I speak with the tongues of men and angels but have not love I am but a clanging cymbal or–ʼ "

The keeper staggered back in shock, muttering, "Parbleau!" as the prisoner bubbled with joy.

"We're playing a game, Keeper! A game! Take another page, any page!" He seized both the jailer's hands in his and sang, "Keeper and I are playing a game! A game! We're playing a–"

Suddenly the keeper's perpetually flushed and dirty face went still and he swore as his left arm became rigid. Phillippe dropped his hands as he gasped and clutched at his chest with his other hand and dropped upon the stone floor.

"Keeper...?" Phillippe knelt beside him. He saw the stillness and lifelessness of his slack face and touched his nerveless hand, and then he realized the truth– he was dead. Death. It was permanent, there was nothing he could do to bring the life back into him, nothing anyone could do, he was dead...

"No... no!" He said, his voice hitching with sobs. "Keeper, please, you cannot die! You're my only friend!" The prisoner tried to wipe his eyes, but he could not get at them inside the mask. He edged toward the open door, calling,

"Help! Someone! Keeper is dead!" There was no answer, so he slumped down beside the open door and wept.

. ~ . . ~ .

D'Artaganan stood in his room that was in the same wing, off the same corridor as those belonging to the royal family, gazing out the window that overlooked the courtyard and the grounds. All the guests had long since departed, and he turned back to his room.

It was quite Spartan in furnishings, containing only a plain dark wood table– a bulky piece of furniture which he used as a desk– a single chair, a bed, and his weapons laid alongside. A large wardrobe stood on the wall opposite the window, beside the doorway; that contained his clothes, a mirror hanging on the inside of one of the doors.

He sat down at his table which faced the doorway and began to look over some paperwork with a lamp set to his left and an undipped quill in his hand. Through the open doorway he saw the nun attendants of the Queen mother were filing through the corridor and his riveted his eyes back to his work.

He looked up as a voice suddenly spoke at his doorway. It was one of the Queen's attendants, and she curtsied, saying

"Her highness wishes a word with you."

D'Artagnan nodded and arose, going out into the corridor. Anne of Austria stood about halfway down the hall, looking solemnly beautiful, and d'Artagnan approached, bowing.

"M'lady..?" He raised her offered hand to his lips, and did not lift his eyes until he had completed the gesture.

"I understand you saved my son's life today," she replied in her sweet voice that had never lost it's trace of a Spanish accent. D'Artagnan bowed in assent.

"God smiled upon us."

"And you– you were not hurt?"

"No, your highness."

"That is good." Without a change of expression on her still beautiful, but sad face, she entered her chambers, her attendants following her. For a moment d'Artagnan stood in the corridor, and then returned to his room with a sigh.

Just then, Lieutenant Andre with two men bearing the insignia of the Royal Guard on their tabards approached, and saluting, entered.

"Duty lists of the day, Captain," he said, laying the papers upon the desk.

"Thank you, Andre," d'Artagnan replied, extending a hand and sliding them backward into his range of vision, rotating the sheets and reading over them quickly. Lt. Andre saluted and was about to retire when d'Artagnan's voice stopped him.

"Wait." He turned."There is an entry here– ʻMessenger sent by King to residence of Mademoiselle Christine de La Vallière.ʼ Why was that?"

The two young guards tried not to smirk as Andre said,

"Well, Captain..."

. ~ . . ~ .

Athos, hearing a peculiar rap he had not heard in years sound upon his door, at once leapt to his feet and threw it open. The morning sunlight streaming in at first prevented him from recognizing his old friend.

"D'Artagnan!" he exclaimed.

"Athos, my dear friend!" returned d'Artagnan as they embraced with the deep affection of men who have shared each other's darkest times as well as glorious days. Athos led him inside and shut the door, as d'Artagnan said,

"It has been too long."

"Life is too long," returned Athos, smiling one of his rare smiles. "Except in the presence of our friends. Look at you! You are still a boy. I can still see that scrawny Gascon lad of eighteen riding into Paris on that gaunt farm horse– an extraordinary color, a yellow, almost, I will never forget it–"

"_Mordieux_, you will not let me forget it!" he exclaimed. Athos smiled again at that remnant of musketeer's expressions as d'Artagnan continued, "Do not remind me of those times, my youth, my foolishness–"

"What? Those were glorious times."

"–that I had the audacity to duel with you–"

"Ay, my shoulder still aches at the remembrance of it. And Madame Boncieux–"

"_Pesté_! I say, do not remind me! I was young, and foolish."

"But gallant."

"Ay, gallant, but stupid. As the Queen says, if I can style it in Spanish–" d'Artagnan grimaced, "_Amar y saber no puede ser_. No one can love and also be wise. I have since learned of true love."

Athos looked closer at him. "From Anne of Austria?"

"I have taught myself that years ago– I cannot love her, t'would be treason against France."

"But not to love her treason against your heart, eh?"

The musketeer ignored the comment. "Since I cannot love her, I serve her."

"And her son, and that most loyally. But sit, sit! I'll open a bottle of wine."

D'Artagnan allowed himself to be pushed into one of the two wooden chairs by the meager hearth, looking about him at the place Athos had chosen, away from his true identity and life of luxury– the place could be called modest at best, saying,

"Thanks, but not for me."

"What!" Athos turned from where he had opened a cupboard and laid his hands on two cups. "You cannot drink with a friend you haven't seen in heaven knows how long?"

"Nay," d'Artagnan rubbed a hand over his face and down his mustache. "I have ordered a drill of the Royal Guard for midnight tonight– I must be clear-headed."

"Midnight!" Athos exclaimed. "_Ma foi_, driving the youngsters hard, eh?"

"I must, they must stay sharp," d'Artagnan explained. "There was an attempt on the King's life yesterday."

"Another?" Athos's eyes widened, but his expression turned to one of pride and amusement. "How many times have you saved his life in this year alone? Three? Four?"

"That tells us something." D'Artagnan rose and began to pace, six steps, turn, six steps, turn, his cloak swishing. Athos's eyes tracked him from where he sat. "Something we already know. Not who is attempting to save the King's life, but who is attempting to take it. He is far from a beloved king." A cloud passed over the captain's face and he returned to his chair, standing behind it and grasping the back.

"Athos–" he began, but was interrupted by the door opening and footsteps entering. He turned as Athos sprang to his feet, the years rolling back from him at the sight of the young man whom he hastened forward to greet.

"Raoul! Look, d'Artagnan's come to visit us at las–" He stopped short at the young soldier's grief-washed face, his pale contracted brow and his glassy eyes. "Why, Raoul, what is the matter, you look dreadful! Has something happened?"

He started to draw his son to a chair, but the young soldier pulled away and set his face toward that attic stairs, saying,

"I have come to say goodbye– my regiment is recalled, so I withdrew my request to join the musketeers."

"What!" Athos started. "Were all the regiments recalled?" Raoul shook his head.

"Only the one I joined. I shall die on the front lines valiantly, otherwise I shall have to stab myself with my own sword."

"What! What are you talking about?" Athos looked as if he feared for his son's health.

"Christine, she–" he stopped, looking at d'Artagnan as if he was a very material obstacle hindering the progress of this conversation; the musketeer made no move to go, but sat, studying his hands, his face impassable.

"She– the King has invited her to come and live at the palace."

For once, Athos's face did not conceal his emotions, he looked shocked as d'Artagnan behind him witnessed this with agony.

"She cannot possibly accept," he began, but d'Artagnan's voice came:

"She cannot possibly refuse." Athos turned briefly, looking in disbelief at his friend, and then back at his son. Finally he managed,

"But– are you sure?"

"We were at her house– I had just taken the ring from my pocket for the third time when several musketeers brought the message, inviting her to become a lady in waiting to Henrietta, Monsieur's wife whom he is bringing back from England. And with the invitation he sent the pendant from the piglet–" Raoul was speaking very quickly but stopped as his father interrupted, looking at d'Artagnan and then back at Raoul– if he had at first feared for his son's health, he now feared for his sanity.

"Pendant? Piglet? What are you–"

"Never mind, Papá." Raoul said the name tenderly, even through his spiritless voice of grief, and the name Athos hadn't heard in many years brought the water unbidden to his eyes. "She loved me once, and I want to die remembering that." He turned to go.

"Die? What...?"

"I have rejoined my regiment and asked to resume my commission at the front of Fromberge's troops."

"Front! Fromberge?" Athos responded, his face changing. "No–" Raoul turned wearily round.

"It is already done. I just wanted to come and tell you, and say goodbye, and thank you."

He went slowly up the stairs. Athos managed to get to a chair and sank his head forward upon his arms on the table. D'Artagnan placed a hand on his shoulder and began,

"Athos–" but he murmured,

"This cannot be." He lifted his head abruptly, his voice rising, "Does his majesty have difficulty finding an occupant for his bed? All of France knows that no matter who is at court, their waiting maids are but mistresses for the King!"

D'Artagnan tried again. "But if the young woman truly loves Raoul–"

"She is a woman, d'Artagnan!" exploded the usually phlegmatic Athos, slamming his hands down on the table. "A woman from a poor family. It does not matter that they have loved each other since their childhood." He dropped his voice. "You may still be young enough to believe that love conquers everything, but remember what I have known! I have lived long, and seen much– too much. Even when kings are hunch-backs they can have any woman they desire, for _power seduces even more than love_!"

D'Artagnan sat silently, feeling strangely ashamed at this lecture, much as a boy who does not know his lesson feels when he is reprimanded by his tutors. Athos said slowly, not taking his eyes from d'Artagnan in an almost inaudibly voice:

"You knew this was happening. You knew, and that's why you came." His voice rose. "You came to gloat over my grief–"

"I came to bring you hope!" D'Artagnan's shouting drowned out even Athos's rising voice. A ringing silence followed, after which he whispered, looking at his friend,

"I know our King. And yet I bring you hope."

"What hope is there? Wartime commissions can only be vacated by a royal order and you..." he trailed off, scarcely daring himself the thought.

"I cannot obtain a release, but I have dispatched a message to Fromberge requesting that Raoul will be kept far from the fighting."

Athos embraced him. "Thank you my friend. That boy is everything to me."

"I know," asserted d'Artagnan, extricating himself. "That is why I do not know if it is right."

"If what is right?"

"He wishes to die. He feels that much for La Vallière. If he does not die in the field then he will find some other way to do it– Perhaps this is better–"

"This is no hope, d'Artagnan!" Athos exclaimed. "You simply do not understand! You have had no son, you do not know what it is to hear his small voice day in and day out, to kiss his hair, to smell his breath as he sleeps, to teach him everything he knows, hoping he would have a happy lot in life, to see this attachment mature, and be overjoyed for him..."

D'Artagnan's face clouded at this, and he said quietly, "Fatherhood is a joy I cannot imagine." He sighed, returning himself to the topic at hand. "I will speak to the King personally, for surely he is unaware of the problems his inviting Mademoiselle de La Vallière have caused for one who so loyally served his father. Raoul will not tarry– I must not either."

D'Artagnan rose, and Athos looked up at him.

"Save my son, d'Artagnan," was all he said. The Captain of the Musketeers nodded, and the door shut behind him. Athos sat in his own grief for only a moment and then sat out to assuage his son's.

"Raoul!" he called. "Raoul!" A very white face appeared at the top of the stairs.

"What is it, Father?" he said weakly.

"Come, let us take a walk. I will walk you to the parade grounds."

"Yes, first let me finish up here." Momentarily Raoul appeared with his knapsack of personal effects and his cap, his weapons he had left in the care of a friend, should his grief prove too much for him.

The exited the cottage, Raoul without a backward glance, and walked along a row of aspens nearby, the grove being a favorite place of Athos's. Raoul spoke first.

"Oh, father, I would to God that this wound inflicted upon me would have the effect of drawing me nearer to you, but that cannot be, as I must go, and do my duty."

Athos was long in responding, but he proceeded to reassure his son with the sweet condolence that flowed from his eloquent mouth and generous heart. The wound was not healed, but he shared much more of his life than he had ever before with the young man, and told him that the first pangs of infidelity were necessary to human existence, and that no one has truly loved without first feeling it. Raoul started at this, and said,

"Father, you know I would never doubt your word, especially in light of all you have told me of your life, but–" his face grew a shade paler, almost gray, "Are you giving it to me that Christine is unfaithful– that after all these years, that she–" he could hardly say it, "–loves the King?"

"Raoul–" began his father, but he plunged on.

"Monsieur, I believe all you tell me to be true; no one has suffered the affections and afflictions of the heart so much as you have, but you are a man too intelligent, too severely tried by misfortunes not to allow for the the weaknesses of a soldier who suffers for the first time. I must pay a tribute that won't allow for it's second offering– Father, permit me to plunge myself so deeply in my grief that I may, while outwardly doing my duty to France, forget myself in it, that I may drown even my reason in it!"

"Raoul! Raoul!"

"Listen, Monsieur." Raoul placed a trembling hand on Athos's arm. "I will not accept the idea that you are wrong, nor can I accustom myself to the idea that Christine, the most beautiful, and faithful and innocent–" he broke off in sobs at trying to describe her, recommencing momentarily, "That she has been able to so basely deceive a man so honest and so true a lover as I after all these years. Never can I believe that! ʻChristine lost! Christine infamous! Christine unfaithful!ʼ Ah, _ciel_, the idea is much more cruel to me than Raoul abandoned– Raoul unhappy– Raoul dead."

Athos had nothing to say to this for a moment, but stopping in their promenade as they reached the end of the grove and leaning one hand against a slim whitish tree on either side of him, said,

"You leave me but one remedy, the heroic one. I must justify her treachery by her love."

Raoul trembled visibly. "What do you mean?"

They proceeded beyond the aspens and skirted the outworkings of old Paris, every step bringing them nearer to the mustering ground that was now in sight, dotted with campaign tents and soldiers milling to and fro. Athos had sent his son off before on many military exploits, always with his usual calm admission that he might not return, but counted his skill and bravery to preserve his life and thus far had not been disappointed. He was now unnerved by the fact that this young man, instead of seeking honor through death now sought a death disguised by honor. He spoke.

"A woman who yields to a king because he is a king deserves to be called unfaithful and infamous." He looked at his son, who was quite unmanned, blanching and quivering in his depression. Image after image arose in his mind of the agile youth, his face, his manners, walking with him on the grounds of their large country estate , fencing in the salle, studying at the desk in the Count's own room... this young man was his life, and he was furiously proud of all he was and all he had taught him, reflecting in but one place he failed. He failed to communicate that love was a hard thing. He sought to reinforce that now, whatever the cost.

"But what if Christine loves Louis? Both young, they have forgotten all, he his rank as France's King and his vows to serve her, she her rank as the daughter of a country squire and her vows to love you. Raoul, love absolves everything– it is easily explained if they love each other sincerely."

Athos knew that with what his friend d'Artagnan had told him of the King's personal habits, and Christine's idol-like devotion to his son since her infancy this could not be true, but it was the only venue left open to him. And when he had dealt this sharp blow, Athos, with a sigh, saw Raoul leap away under the cruel wound and look about him whither to fly.

The Count, seeing this, grasped his arm to prevent it, while in his mind for a long moment Raoul's heart seemed to fly back into the thickest recesses of the wood to nurse it's hurts in solitude. A moment later, like he had never failed to do, in the manner of a dog, who having been chastened returns penitent to caress his master's hand, Raoul turned, pale, trembling, but subdued. Athos said to him with the profound understanding of human thoughts that few have because they do not take to time to study those near them,

"I do not say this because I wish it to be true– I only do not wish you to forget in the ardent melancholy passions of your offended love the respect due to a king. D'Artagnan is my living example of that when I feel such things. You are thinking contemptibly of the royal words, using the equivocal faith which certain madmen draw from promises falling from thrones, you bypass in your mind two whole centuries, like a bird rapidly crossing a narrow strait to go from one world to another, reminding yourself and venturing to predict as we used to the time when Kings and Cardinals will become less than other men." Raoul's face was pale, but his father continued mercilessly,

"You are right. I can tell you that serenely and persuasively, all that you say to yourself within your breast will happen; Cardinals and Kings will lose their privileges, as a star, yea, even suns, as is the wont of our King have completed their time and lose their splendor. But when that moment will come, Raoul, we shall be dead. And remember well what I say to you: in this world, all– men, women, kings and princes– must live for the present. We can only live in the future for God."

Raoul uttered a cry and embraced his father, tearing himself away and saying breathlessly,

"Father, I leave you! I leave you forever!"

"Must you go?" inquired Athos soflty, while himself he knew it was stupid question. He had said it upon every of the young man's departures. But he was of such a nature that all emotion sank, lost forever when he resolved to confine it to his own heart, and Raoul followed this trait now. Athos admired him for it, having reproached his recent storms, but knowing all men differ.

"Monsieur, I had made a plan, that of piercing my own heart with my sword, but you would have thought that cowardly, and in light of how much you have invested in my life, I could not bear to disappoint you. I have renounced that plan for this one. Here we must part."

"You leave me, by going, Raoul. You are all I live for."

"Listen to me again, Father, I implore you. If I do not go, I shall die here of grief. Not a minute passes but that conjures up her face when we were young, sweet, innocent, and full of the childish admiration that a girl of seven holds for a lad of fifteen. I choose to believe that regard matured into much more. I know how long I have to live– send me away quickly, or you will have to see me die before your eyes, in our house. This resolve is stronger than my will– stronger than my strength." He cast his eyes down to veil the tears in them.

"I have promised to devote myself to God, and in exchange for this sacrifice which I make of my youth and my liberty, I only ask of him one thing, and that is to preserve me for you, because you are all I live for now that _she_ has left me. God alone can give me the strength not to forget I owe you everything, and that nothing must count before you."

Athos embraced him once more.

"You have answered me as an honest man. You are free, Raoul, go, _a'dieu _."

And one man turned slowly and began to walk into Paris while the other turned with a loud hitching sob and ran toward the encampment of the troops.

. ~ . . ~ .


	9. Chapter 9

D'Artagnan strode through the corridors of the palace, turning down one hallway, then another, lined with mirrors, for the Sun King loved to be surrounded by his reflection, at the end of which he approached a particular mirror and touched a button hidden in the golden frame. The mirror swung open like a door, revealing one of the many secret passages within the walls of the palace. He stepped inside and the mirror closed after him, leaving no trace of it's existence.

Within an ornate bedroom, the most noticeable feature of which was the enormous bedstead with sixteen-foot posts, heavily curtained, a young lady swung her feet over the edge of the bed and made her way, in her undergarments, to the window where she peeped through the heavy brocade and announced gratefully,

"Your majesty, it is day."

"Alright," mumbled Louis, tying a silk robe, embroidered in gold around himself before a mirror.

"Shall I await your pleasure toni–" the mistress began, looking as if she hoped the answer would be in the negative, but stopped as Louis announced,

"I'm hungry."

"I can have food brought–" began the girl obsequiously, but the king said, turning and regarding the daylight now coming through the curtains with disgust as having put an end to his nighttime pleasures,

"I like to eat alone." He moved to what appeared to be a wardrobe standing against the far wall, and opened it's door, revealing a hidden staircase, turning as he tugged on the door with a grunt, and said,

"Oh, by the way, you shall be moved to a different apartment tomorrow." Without another word to the girl, he moved down the concealed staircase in his golden dressing gown.

At the bottom of the dark stairs, disguised by a similar massive chest of drawers, Louis stepped barefooted onto the plush carpet of his own chamber. Suddenly, the lifesized portrait of Louis XIII on the opposite side of the room opened to admit the Captain of the Musketeers. He jumped.

"Aaa! D'Artagnan!" He placed a hand over his thumping heart and blinked, drawing a breath. "These passages were constructed for the king's security, not so you could step from my father's portrait and startle me to death!"

"It is for your security that I come, monseigneur," d'Artagnan began, bowing. "For the security of your honor."

"My honor?" Louis raised an eyebrow and sat down at a small table upon which was laid some food. "I already know about the riots," he said between bites. "I heard my courtiers out there whispering, some fool gave the order to distribute rotten food. I will deal with it later."

"There is another thing– of a more personal nature," d'Artagnan said, stepping closer.

"Personal nature?" mocked the King, setting down his cup of wine and turning himself so he could better see his captain.

"Mademoiselle Christine de La Vallière–" At the opening Louis's face relaxed, "–she is betrothed to Raoul de Bragelonne, son of Athos the musketeer who has served France through–"

"Betrothed? I think not," Louis rose dismissively. "She said so herself, you were there."

"She said it was a tacit bond, you do not understand, your majesty, they have been attached to each other since they were children– she was seven and he was fifteen–"

Louis gave a short laugh. "Children do funny things, things that are altered greatly when they are old enough to know better. When I was fifteen, I refused to stand up with my cousin, Henrietta of England, for no lad of fifteen wants to be seen dancing with a girl of seven. I would have danced with Mazarin's niece, but my mother insisted that I dance the first branle with the princess. I replied that I did not like skinny little girls. And lo and behold, now things are changed– Monsieur brings back Henrietta of England as his bride, and she is a quite attractive young woman. See?"

"It is precisely the fact that the duc d'Orleans is married to her that makes her seem to you so appealing," muttered d'Artagnan, but aloud he said, "Sire, she said she and Bragelonne were engaged."

"Not exactly," Louis returned, seating himself in his chair again and stroking his chin. "It was more like, "I am engaged to Raoul, or will be, when he manages to ask me."

"They had written each other many declarations and letters of love–"

"Ah? He can write? Unusual, not every soldier can read and wr–"

"Your majesty!" exploded d'Artagnan in exasperation. Louis turned, his eyes asking innocently, "Is something the matter?"

"He is a nobleman, though rather impoverished, his father is the Comte de la Fère. But all this is beside the point. This is dealing a rather hard blow to my friend Athos."

"_My friend_, Athos!" Louis pounced. "Ah, ha! We have some minor party interests running here, don't you think, Captain?" He shrugged and resumed poking at his food. "Mademoiselle de La Vallière has accepted our invitation, and by that we can only suppose that she wishes to come– as we wish her to be here."

"Monseigneur has had many women–"

The King rose. "That is my desire, and my desire is what should concern you, d'Artagnan, not the sentiments of some commoner!"

But d'Artagnan, with a true Gascon's spirit, would not give up. "It is not Raoul's heart alone that concerns me. It is yours. I know that you find women compliant, especially the poorer ones like Christine. But do they love you?" d'Artagnan demanded, his eyes flashing, his mustache quivering. "Do you love them? What about a queen to love? A son of your own?"

Louis made a noise with his tongue. "What quaint notions, d'Artagnan! You are starting to sound like my mother who would have me wed the Infanta of Spain, her niece, before the year is out. But they contradict my father, who avoided the queen he was forced to take when he was but fourteen–"

"Did not your majesty know of love when he was not yet twelve?"

"Ah, Madame le Comtesse de Frontenac? I had nearly forgotten. Ah, yes, you have a point there, my dear d'Artagnan, but as I was saying, my father avoided my mother nearly all of his reign, and only then went to her to bear me."

D'Artagnan opened his mouth at this, but thinking better of it, quickly shut it again. Let him think what he wished. He spoke:

"There is more to love than he knew, or that you know."

Louis's eyes grew wide at this. "That is most certainly enough. You are a good servant, captain," he turned away, but kept his eyes fixed haughtily on d'Artagnan. "You are a good subject, d'Artagnan, but you forget your place. _Allez-vou-en_."

"I forget nothing, sire. At least help Monsieur de Bragelonne."

"Silence! I order you! _Allez-vou-en_!" shouted the King.

"Order Fromberge to keep him out of the line of fire!" There was a silence following this, and the Gascon added softly, "It will be the least you can do to protect your own honor, monseigneur."

Louis took his breath in slowly, and nodded before letting it out again. "Very well. I will consider it, leave me now."

"Thank you, your majesty." Bowing, d'Artagnan went to the painting, touched the button hidden in the ornate swirls of it's golden frame, and stepped into the secret passage, the portrait closing behind him.

. ~ . . ~ .

De Guiche turned for perhaps the third time and looked at the beautiful young lady behind him to see if she was following. He could not help but notice she limped slightly, but seemed very graceful and quick in spite of it, and she paused at every new turn of the corridors to regard the opulence with open-mouthed wonder.

"Come along," he said, a little gruffer than he intended. "His majesty wishes to dine with you tonight, and he must not be kept waiting," he added in a kinder tone.

With a soft intake of breath, Christine picked up the pace until she was right behind the young musketeer. Thinking she anticipated his next turn when the hall diverged around a pink marble-pillared court she began to proceed to the left, but he turned sharply to the right. With military stiffness, he did not turn as she corrected her course and navigated on after him.

They were proceeding down a hall of mirrors and Christine caught glimpses of herself trotting along after the musketeer in the golden reflections on either side of them. With a furtive glance in the mirrors on the opposite side of the hall, she stiffened her back and marched jerkily along in soldierly strides beneath the hem of her gold-hued dress, her best one, in an all-too-faithful imitation of the young musketeer.

Perhaps hearing the change in the tone of her irregular footfalls, or perhaps for some other reason, curiosity getting the best of him, he turned sharply, his hair puffing back from his face in his own breeze just as she stepped on the hem of her dress and gave a little stumble.

She smiled and hoped it was a serene apologetic smile, not the the compressed look of the giggles she felt were pent up in her chest.

"Just a few more minutes," intoned de Guiche, his mustache twitching in bewilderment as he wondered about this rather strange, but rather beautiful girl. As they descended a flight of steps and crossed another court, looking like a sort of ballroom or perhaps a throne room, their steps echoing eerily throughout the empty grandeur, she suddenly felt a bit guilty at all the fun she was having– she hadn't even said goodbye to Raoul, who was probably at home wondering why she didn't come.

Then she remembered– he had been there when the invitation came, and besides, Athos had come and given her a small ring that Raoul had given back to him, he said, for he was rejoining a campaign and wished it to be kept safe. She thought this rather queer, but wore the ring, fingering it as she thought about her changed fortunes. So he would know where to send a letter. He would understand... would he understand? She was suddenly frightened, remembering her mission here.

"Here you are," de Guiche said, opening a door to a magnificent bedchamber. She stepped reverently and almost timidly inside the silent soaring room, and looked in awe about her as the door shut, leaving her alone. Christine looked at her surroundings, and saw handcarved richly upholstered furniture, a chaise-lounge, and the gleaming figures of cherubic angels upon the four posts of the bed, replicated in the frescoes that edged the walls and ceilings, the latter of which was covered with murals.

Christine's footsteps, seemed loud in the silent room as she began to advance to a small dressing table by an embroidered screen to peep behind it out the window in attempt to ascertain which part of the palace she was in when the door suddenly opened, causing her to jump, and a very large woman, richly arrayed, bustled in, carrying a magnificently elegant dove-colored dress.

"Ah, Mademoiselle de La Vallière," she greeted, curtsying much in the manner of a duck fishing for it's breakfast on a pond. Christine stared at this performance as she stood before the woman who at length looked up and laying the dress in the bed in a somewhat disarrayed heap proceeded to trundle about the room, fidgeting with trifles such as the curtain's folds, and the roses in the vase before the mirror.

"Who– who are you?" inquired Christine at last, in confusion.

"Why, to be sure, I am your lady-in-waiting, my dear," she said with a smile.

"But I thought that it was I that was to be–"

"Madame will not expect much of her attendants, none of them ever do," replied the woman, already on her way out. "So you will, very naturally, be spending most of your time with his majesty. After your bath put this on, it is the King's favorite color."

"I thought that gold–" began Christine numbly, her mind reeling.

"Oh, gold he only permits for himself to wear," she looked in sympathy at the naïve error in the girl's choice of best dresses, "Blue he prefers on women because it is becoming to skin tones; muted and non-assertive, while attractive still." She seemed pleased at this, and once again pivoted her ponderous bulk toward the door, but then turned, silks and brocades awirl and deposited a folded piece of paper upon the desk, saying,

"Oh, and this letter came for you this morning." With another curtsy, she was gone.

The sound of the door closing behind the maid jerked Christine to life and she hurried to the desk, lifted the letter, and recognized the handwriting.

"Raoul!" Hurriedly she opened it and read quickly, breathing, "The army! Oh, Raoul, don't despair!" Tears came unbidden to her eyes and one trickled down her cheek in defiance of her will. "I will always be faithful..."

She interrupted herself as her gaze came to rest upon the gorgeous gown, and she lifted her shining brown eyes to the murals painted above the bed. The depicted naked gods and goddesses indulging in Olympian orgies.

. ~ . . ~ .

Among the bold sensual strokes of the painting, giving way in places to delicate and refined lines defining the subjects, Christine would have seen, had she looked long enough, something strange occurring behind the eye of one of the figures. The figure was that of a young Bacchus, reclining with a goblet in his hand, his body scantily draped with the vines of the fruit, and the eyeball, with an iris of deep brown that quickly disappeared as a tiny panel was slid aside, and was replaced with a human eye of piercing blue, disguised in the mural.

Above the room in a secret passageway the king leaned away from the hidden stairs over upon the dome of the ceiling, his fingers feeling for the tiny slide. Pushing it aside, he put his eye to the hole and looked into the chamber. Below him, the form of Christine, arrayed in the soft blue dress was standing before the mirror, twisting up her thick blond hair. Louis shifted his legs slightly to allow him to lean more comfortably against the curve of the dome and kept his eye glued to the peephole, watching as she stared intently at herself seeming almost surprised at her breathtaking beauty in the dress.

She looked for a long time, gradually accustoming herself to her own appearance, and then, moving over to the small table, she put on dangling pearl and gold earrings and clasped the matching necklace about her throat, returning to the mirror. Louis watched from above, a smile of anticipation tugging at his mouth as he began to draw away from his spying, but looked again as Christine's movement attracted his attention.

She reached slowly to the vase of roses, and grasping one, she began to pull it away from the rest, but then changed her mind and reached for another fuller blossom. Fixing her gaze upon her eyes in the mirror, she gently touched the full crimson bloom to her cheeks, and then began blotting it about her neck, perfuming herself with it's fragrance.

Then something flitted almost guiltily in her eyes as she lay down the slightly crumpled rose and reached for Raoul's letter to read it again, as she seated herself on the edge of the bed. His voice seemed to come to her as her eyes scanned the page:

"My own Christine..."

She began to pass her tongue over her lips, dry at the recollection of her sins– of trying to be beautiful in such a place, with such a purpose, but remembering her rouge, thought better of it, just then looking up with a gasp. The King stood before her.

"Sire! I–" she began to rise quickly to her feet, and Louis reached out a hand to steady her; his grasp was gentle upon her arm, his hand warm. "How did you–" she stared in shock.

"How did I get in?" The King smiled. "You are but new come here, and will soon learn many secrets." His blue eyes, which until then had been appraising her approvingly fell upon the paper still in her hand. "What is that?"

"Nothing–" Christine began, feeling a strange mixture of emotions, but sure she did not want Louis too interested in her private affairs.

"A letter. May I see?" He took the letter, her fingers allowing the paper to slip from her hand without resistance as she regarded him with frightened eyes in her lovely face. The King read, his eyes narrowing with a hard look for a brief moment, then relaxing as he smiled at her.

"From Raoul He urges you to guard your honor–" Here the smiled melted from his face, his eyes keeping captive hers, though his voice remained gentle, "–As if it could be in any danger... from your king."

"Raoul... is in love– ever since we were–" Christine found herself saying.

"Since you were children, I know." She stopped as the King fluttered a finger. "But enough of this. Our dinner awaits." Tossing the letter on to the bed, he offered her his arm as they proceeded from the room.

The chamber into which they were seated to partake of their repast was aglow with the dazzling lights of hundreds of candles in their crystal sconces, the shining dinnerware and plates reflecting the radiance. Louis could feel Christine linger back at all of this being set for her– for them. He turned and smiled at her, but she did not look up and see it.

The King conducted her to her seat which a servant pulled out for her, and then the servant did the same for him at the opposite end of the golden array. He looked at her through the sparking candlelight and gestured to the servant.

"You may leave us." As soon as he had retired, Christine dropped her gaze to her lap and remained thus, staring at her hands. She returned to this posture several times throughout the course of the meal, and the King observed this.

"Mademoiselle, is the food not pleasing to you?"

"Oh no– it is just–"

"You are not used to such surroundings."

"Yes... your majesty."

"Please, I wish you would just call me by my Christian name." He rose and himself filled her goblet.

"Meaning... call you– Louis?"

"Yes, exactly." He seemed pleased. "And I, _cela va sans dive_, should call you Christine– it is such a lovely name."

Her glance flew to his, but he seemed unruffled. They moved over to sit upon two richly upholstered chairs by a tall curtained window at the end of the room and there watched the bright Parisian sunset over the palace grounds.

"You, no doubt, understand why you are here?" the King began presently, once they were arranged, after a few comments upon the brilliancy of the scene. Beginning to relax, Christine felt bold.

"Actually, your majesty, I cannot account for all the honors being done to me." Louis's eyes widened.

"Indeed? Please explain."

"I was told that I was to be of service as a lady-in-waiting to Henrietta of England. Has she not yet arrived?"

"Oh, there is that, Monsieur and Madame of course _would _take their time about traveling... Henrietta has been to the French court before, and the Duc d'Orleans I'm sure has no urge to leave the society of English beaus such as that fourth Lord of Wharton, I am sure," he wrinkled his nose. "However..."

**Isn't that awful? I ran out of ideas there... skip to next chapter...**


	10. Chapter 10

The night passed, the sounds of the wind in the trees, the sounds of the night birds in the gardens, the sounds of the servants in the halls, all falling upon deaf ears. Christine's initial reticence seemed to slip away, or rather be covered by a transparent veil of insensibility that seemed to drop over her that night.

The King, who yet young had been in multiple affairs already found himself enthralled by the beauty of this poor, obscure, yet perfect peasant. He wondered subconsciously as the night of pleasures passed away how his court could be filled with so many wealthy, yet unattractive women and how the country could conceal such a tantalizing specimen so long unnoticed.

Several times in the course of the night she, without meaning to, drew near to the edge of the bed, and always, gently but purposefully Louis drew her back toward him. Later Christine could hardly recall what all took place that night until a sudden rap upon the door interrupted the King in his favorite pastime. With a groan he rolled over and put his feet upon the floor.

"What?" he called.

"Your majesty, it is de Guiche," came a voice.

"Shall I leave?" whispered Christine, sitting up, as Louis tied the sash of a silk dressing gown about himself, her hair which was free and unbound falling in long loose curls over one shoulder.

"No, no, just wait behind the screen," instructed Louis as he jerked open the door a tiny crack and pressed his face irritably to it.

"What is it?"

From behind the embroidered screen Christine fingered the thin folds of her negligèe chemise about her bare legs and shivered, looking out the window which had remained open all the night. A faint glimmer showed in the east announcing day's approach. She wondered if she should be glad as she took up a silver hand mirror and studied her face.

Steady brown eyes looked back at her, a small straight nose, turned up slightly at the end, rosy lips... she began to finger her long ash blond hair, entwining her fingers through a particular curl and listening to the musketeer at the door converse with the King.

Louis gave a tug at the silk sash of his dressing gown as it was, in the manner of silks, beginning to slide from it's loose knot. He tugged on it yet again, cinching it up about his waist but leaving his breast still somewhat bare, his irritation obvious at being interrupted so near day.

De Guiche hurried, "I would not have disturbed you, monseigneur, but you ordered me to keep you informed–"

"Yes, yes, go on," Louis interrupted.

"Athos, the former musketeer has just fought several of your majesty's guard at the Musketeer's Gate."

Behind the screen, Christine paused at the mention of Athos.

"Did you kill him?" Louis asked as the young musketeer responded,

"No, Captain d'Artagnan would not allow it– the count was upset about the death of his son at the front."

Suddenly, from behind the screen came the sound of the mirror shattering to the floor. A flicker of question flashed across de Guiche's eyes, but Louis asked,

"What did Athos want? Was he trying to enter the palace?"

"He was, but the captain prevented it," de Guiche admitted, running his hands through his hair. "Do you want Monsieur Athos arrested, your majesty?"

"Not by you," came the reply. "I will order d'Artagnan to do it."

The musketeer saluted and the King shut the door, hurrying over to the embroidered screen, behind which Christine stood, looking startlingly beautiful in the dim lamp light in her loose white shift, like a fallen angel with a stricken face. She was pale and she started forward, crying,

"Oh– I heard, is it true?"

"My dear! The glass– the glass..." Louis scolded gently, catching her elbow in a cupped hand as her bare feet stepped unseeing and uncaringly on the shards. He guided her to the chaise-lounge, where he said suavely,

"Is what true?"

"Oh, Raoul is dead– he is dead," she began to sob. "He is dead, and it is all my fault."

"No, my love, it is no one's fault, it is the Dutch's fault. He knew he risked death when he joined a regiment that was recalled, as centuries of soldiers have done before him–"

Suddenly Christine stopped and looked up at him, as if hardly believing the thought that just entered her mind.

"A regiment that was recalled..." she whispered dropping her head forward upon her arms and giving way to her emotions. Her voice floated up borne by the rising of her tears:

"You knew– you knew about Raoul..."

"I did not want to upset you," Louis soothed. "It was tragic. Quite tragic. I did everything I could for him... I ordered him positioned far from the fighting in a spot of complete safety, but," he sighed through his nose, and continued, his words soft on his exhaling breath, "He disregarded my orders and charged into danger. He must have known what he was doing. He must have had a reason..."

As she shook he wrapped her in a blanked and cuddled her, but she stiffened in his arms and said, with realization,

"A reason..."

"Christine, Christine, my darling, don't take it so hard. Raoul was a good friend to you, but nothing more. He died honorably– for France. I will have a mass said for his soul; it will ensure his place in heaven."

"Oh, Louis, oh Louis," she sobbed, not wanting his comfort, but seeing no alternative.

He at last helped her to her feet and back to sit on the edge of the bed where he poured her a cup of wine, and stood by attentively while she drank it. Replacing the goblet on the table, he returned to her side as she arranged herself for repose, to her surprise laying down again beside her.

"It is nearly day," he said smoothly. "I do not want to waste any more time."

Christine buried her face in the pillow for a brief moment, blotting the tears from her face, and then she turned her back to the King, the negligèe slipping from her shoulder covered by her hair. A moment later she felt Louis's hands gently pushing the thick waves aside, and he touched his lips to her shoulder. She stiffened as a chill ran down her body at this.

Again, placing his hand on her he attempted to draw her into his arms, but she did not respond. Louis continued his advances for several more moments and finally he said softly,

"What's wrong?" There was no reply. "What is it?" he whispered again. Raising up on one elbow in exasperation he said loudly, "What's wrong?"

She did not look at him. "I cannot do this. He urged me to guard my honor. Now he is dead, yet he forgives me. He forgave me for what he knew I would do. But can I forgive myself?"

"Forgive?" the King echoed uncomprehendingly. She looked across the room for a long moment, then turned.

"I loved him, Louis. I love him still."

"Still–" Louis whispered, looking at his hand where it lay bent on the coverlet. Christine continued,

"And in pretending to love you, I do something awful."

"You pretend..." he said, looking at her for the first time, and unfurling his arm. She sat up.

"I have sinned against love, and against God, for the sake of your mercy, which you would not have given without my sin. I will burn in hell– so will you."

The King sat up, leaning over her shoulder and stroking her arm. "Oh no, my love," he said smoothly. "You will burn in hell. I will not." He almost smiled, then his grip on her arm tightened, and his voice grew harsh. "–For I am King, ordained by God!"

Without another word he snatched the coverlet from her bed to cover his shoulders, his silk robe still not performing it's duty, and he strode from the room, the gold brocaded cloth carpeting the floor as it trailed like a long train behind him.

Christine sat motionless for a long moment, and then flopped down again, intending to sob, but seeing the depression and feeling the lingering warmth in the bed still beside her, she extracted herself from the coverless arrangement and was about to touch her bare feet to the floor when she felt something crackle beneath her thigh.

Reaching down, she took hold of a crumpled piece of paper, drawing it out from the sheets. It was Raoul's letter, tossed upon the bed that morning, hours, and another lifetime ago.

. ~ . . ~ .


	11. Chapter 11

**A random little scene that I never decided where to fit it in... This is in the countryside where Phillippe is being held after being released from the Bastille, but before they go to Paris.**

An hour or so later, Aramis came upon Phillippe in the stretch of pasture that led up to the road, squatting in the dirt and digging with a stick. Unaware of the bishop's approach, he punched holes in the sod and pulled the patty of grass away, poking in the soft soil underneath. He removed something from his palm and placed it in the small cavity he had created, the covered it with dirt, replacing the sod slab gently and tamping it down with his shoe. He then took a flagon of water he had at his side and drizzled it over the spot, turning when Aramis cleared his throat.

"Aramis!" He stood, brushing his hands down his trousers, removing the clinging dirt and grass particles from his knees. He smiled. "It is a wonderful day, isn't it."

"Yes." Aramis looked about for signs of spectators and then said conspiratorially, "May I ask what it is you are doing?"

Phillippe lowered his eyes to the spot at his feet and said in the manner of a reprimanded child admitting a fault,

"I was planting something– a peach stone." He looked up, alarm spreading over his features. "It will grow, won't it? Isn't it just a sort of seed that will grow when you put it–"

Aramis chuckled. "Yes, of course. Only it will take many years."

"I know that," Phillippe responded in a low voice. "I like to think of doing something that will remain after I am gone."

Aramis, with difficulty turned Phillippe's mind from the topic of his peach pit to the issues at hand.

"A grand ball is going to be held in three days. I must leave for Paris with Porthos so as not to excite suspicion, but Athos will remain here with you..."


	12. Chapter 12

**My apologies... and another big skip, this time to the scene where they break into the Bastille...**

The moonlight shone down over the Bastille, and at a side portal, three shadowy figure hovered.

A ringing knock echoed through the night as Porthos's unmistakeable voice roared,

"Open up! We have a prisoner!"

Inside the solid hideous structure, the guards grimaced at each other and one rose and opened the view port in the massive door. He saw two figures, and in between them, a hooded man, slumped, obviously a beaten captive to be delivered up. The port slammed shut, the bolts made a grinding rattle as they were drawn aside, and the great door of the Bastille heaved open. Without a word, Aramis and Porthos hustled their captive through the guard house, across the prison courtyard, and through a door leading through a mazy tunnel. A guard approached.

"We have a prisoner," muttered Aramis, keeping his head down, and jerking the limp man's arm which he had possession of, gritting his teeth as he knew Porthos would followed his example, and the man cried out in pain.

"Take him down to the third level. The governor will see to the documents tomorrow, he has already retired." The guard continued on past them without a second glance, and Aramis and Porthos drug their prisoner into one of the shadowy portals at the top of a short flight of steps. Hurrying, almost falling down the grimy stairs into the inky shadows below, Aramis yanked the cloak off Athos, and cut the bonds that held his hands. As Porthos used his giant hands to rub the marks from his friend's wrists, Athos felt them tremble slightly in excitement.

"It worked!" he hissed through his mustache.

"It's a prison, you idiot!"Aramis snapped back. "They don't expect anyone to try getting in, the problems will come when we want to get out!"

Athos shushed them and they proceeded down a damp silent corridor.

"How do we know where Phillippe has been placed?" Porthos whispered in the darkness. Aramis replied,

"Think, Porthos! Would you put a prisoner like him in the very bowels of the Bastille, or up on the ramparts where he can escape?"

Porthos grunted, and replied humbly, "As usual, you are right." Perhaps he would have said more, but just then a platoon of guards carrying torches came trooping around the corner and made for the stairway. The three musketeers darted like rats into the shadows and hid in their dark nooks until the guards had passed. As they were marching by the famous clock of the Bastille began tolling, and as soon as all was clear, Athos whispered,

"Midnight! We have ten minutes."

They pressed on, deeper into the Bastille, peering through the gratings of every cell, but not recognizing the man in the iron mask among any of them. Suddenly, they rounded a corner and surprised a jailer who was proceeding along bearing a torch.

"_Tiens_!" he cried. Porthos leapt forward, knocking him into the wall, and took his torch and the ring of keys from his hand as the man fell unconscious. He turned to see Athos and Aramis grinning at him.

"I was beginning to regret bringing you along," Aramis said. "Now I see I was wrong. Come! We must hurry."

At the very end of one of the damp dark corridors in a cell on the right side, at last Athos recognized the gleaming metal-covered visage in the torchlight. Phillippe was stretched out on the floor, asleep, but the light aroused him like the sun rising upon a free man, and he lifted his head.

"Phillippe–" began Athos, grasping the grate on the door as both Porthos and Aramis struggled with the key in the lock.

"Athos! How did you–" Phillippe began, jumping to his feet, as the door, with a sudden click swung inwards, pitching the musketeers into the cell, and Phillippe into Athos's arms. He pressed the iron head to his breast as Aramis kissed his hand and Porthos stood guard at the door with the torch. Athos released Phillippe and said, handing him a sword with his intense and rare smile,

"Come– we have little time."

"Back the way we came," agreed Aramis, and they hurried out into the passageway, Athos towing Phillippe by the hand. They raced through the darkness, starting to the end of the passageway, up a flight of stairs, and then doubling back, reaching another set of steps when Porthos, leading the way, suddenly stopped, the torchlight illumining his face, his fierce eyes wild, his mustache bristling with alarm, and began pushing them back down the stairs.

"Someone's coming!"

Aramis quickly took the cloak they had used to shroud Athos at their entry and threw the tail of it over the prisoner's head as he pressed him back into the shadows, Athos and Porthos doing their best to conceal their torch's light on the other side of the stairs.

As quietly as they could they all drew their swords, watching as the hooded man descended the stairs, his lantern dispelling whatever fears they had about their light betraying them as he held it aloft, slowly swinging it back and fourth as if looking for someone.

Just as they raised their blades and were watching for Athos to give the signal, the man raised his head and the hood fell back.

"D'Artagnan!" Porthos cried, leaping forward. The captain put out a hand.

"The way is blocked from above. The king himself has turned out tonight with a party of men and is waiting in the courtyard with M. Baisemeaux."

"It is not a trap?" Aramis narrowed his eyes.

"I came to see you safely out. Do you have him?"

Aramis removed the cloak from Phillippe's head, but he lingered in the shadows. "You are not deceiving us?"

"See for yourself."

Porthos, with a look round at his friends, mounted the stairs with the torch as d'Artagnan stepped forward and put a hand on Phillippe's shoulder. He looked at the blue eyes shining out from the slits in the hideous mask of rough-hammered iron.

"All you have suffered I would gladly have borne myself to keep it from you, had I but known in time."

Athos said evenly, "That is an easy thing for you to say now." Phillippe's eyes remained steady, his lips through the mouth hole attempting to display a smile. Porthos's torch shone over the scene as he stood, one foot on the top step and the other braced three steps down. "D'Artagnan speaks the truth. The courtyard is full of soldiers and the King is bringing more."

With a nod, d'Artagnan turned. "This way."

He strode off quickly down a side passageway, the others on his heels. Rounding the corner of the tunnel, they found themselves in a long vaulted corridor– Aramis recognized it as the inside of one of the rows of portals running around the courtyard. Noises of men and horses echoed through the stone arches along the vaulted ceiling.

At the end it turned and they were against a large wooden door which opened to the outside. D'Artagnan, taking the keys from Porthos began to unlock it as he spoke.

"Once you are through do not stop until you reach the river."

"If we go out this way Baisemeaux will know you helped us," began Aramis, but d'Artagnan said, "That does not matter now."

Athos grasped his hand and said, "Remember the garden in the Palais Royale during the Fronde?"

A flicker of a smile crossed the captain's face. "I do. Sword in the left hand, shake hands with the right." They all suited their actions to their words, and d'Artagnan pushed open the door. Porthos stepped out first, then Phillippe, followed by Athos, with Aramis bringing up the rear. The abbe kept a hand on the door to close it after them when the rumble of many horses' hooves sounded. Coming around the corner, heading for the men, rode a company of the Royal Guard, with the King himself, dressed as a soldier at their head. Louis XIV pulled up his horse.

"There! Stop them!" He pointed to the three musketeers and the masked prisoner.

"Betrayed!" muttered Aramis as King Louis's musketeers jumped from their horses and drew their rapiers in all one motion. Aramis felt a sudden flash of pain and then a warm trickle of blood on the fingers he had around the door as d'Artagnan's sword licked through, and he forced the door open, standing with them.

Slowly realization dawned on the three musketeers. They drew their swords as well, d'Artagnan pressing Phillippe back into the portal as a brief bloody skirmish ensued at the side door of the Bastille.

Several of the young musketeers, sensing the futility of crossing blades with the men whose legends they had been raised on, retreated at the permission of the King to their mounts to fetch their carbines and pistols. During this lull, d'Artagnan managed to open the door from behind them and they retreated inside just as the skirmishing began again. Pushing Phillippe in first, they all managed to retreat and fasten the door on their foes. D'Artagnan said breathlessly,

"I was not sighted by his majesty defending you against him, T'would have been instant death had I been– I can do no more to help you. I did not betray you, nor will I, but I must return. Go back the way you came– perhaps those in the courtyard will have been called away from their posts by the sounds of the fighting."

With that, the musketeer left them, and pushing Phillippe back into his old friends, eased open the door which was being assailed violently, drawing his pistols and cocking them, shouting,

"I am your captain, let me through!" He was duly permitted to pass and they paused their assaults upon the door, asking if he had seen the traitors and the pretender, and whence they were headed.

Meanwhile, Phillippe, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis hurtled back around the corner of the vaulted corridor, but just as they rounded it, they saw from the opposite end the King, leading his company of musketeers round the corner at the head of the tunnel, followed by the guards of the Bastille.

"Back!" cried Athos, shoving Phillippe out of sight as they retreated around the corner, past the outside door, and into a smaller tunnel, Porthos slamming the door. The sound of booted feet on the other side stopped as they took their positions, and in the eerie silence that followed their breathing sounded loud. Phillippe's eyes were wild.

"We are trapped," panted Aramis, placing a hand over his chest as he caught his breath. All Athos could do was nod. Porthos slumped against the door, fingering his sheathed sword. Just then there was the sound of a bolt being drawn and the outside door opened, someone knocking hurriedly on the opposite side of the inner door, saying,

"It is I, d'Artagnan– let me through."

The door was opened, and the captain admitted. His uniform bore the marks of the fray, but he said, "I could not oppose you, I had to rejoin you. There was not a chance that I could pull my sword in left, shake with right trick before the gaze of the King. S'death, I know–" Aramis smiled as he slipped back into the remembrance of his Gascon accent in his excitement.

Phillippe took the opportunity to begin:

"I should not ask you to put so much on the line for me–" but Athos hushed him and advanced boldly to Porthos.

"Open the door."

"You are mad!" exclaimed Aramis, but Porthos said,

"He is right, the King has all the keys to the doors of the Bastille just like the governor. I would rather die fighting than cornered in here like an rat in a hole."

Athos nodded. "Let us go to meet them." Aramis removed one of his pistols from his shoulder belt and panted,

"Ay, let us go."

They pulled open the door and stepped forward through the narrow tunnel, rounding the corner shoulder to shoulder, their pistols drawn, the man in the iron mask lingering behind them. At the other end of the vaulted corridor Louis saw this and pointed an arm, shouting,

"Charge them!"

Twenty of his personal bodyguard, followed by the guards of the Bastille charged the intrepid line who met them with pistol balls, using the butts of the expended weapons like clubs. Those in front were soon cut down by the bludgeoning of the veteran warriors, and, owing to the amount of the fallen no new assailants could press in. The fighting was cramped, bloody, and fierce, and as they retreated to regroup, de Guiche dragged a wounded comrade back to where the King stood with his musketeers.

"Cowards!" shouted Louis in his ear as he lay his burden in comparative safety. "Not a sword bared, and still twenty run from four?"

Young de Guiche turned from depositing his friend on the floor and said, panting,

"In the corridor our numbers are of no use, your majesty, and no one has the stomach to fight the captain..."

Louis raised his head under it's plumed hat, a sudden solution entering his mind.

"Fall back!" he shouted, through most of the men had already done so, pulling the wounded around the corner behind them.

Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and Captain d'Artagnan had retreated back around the corner our of sight. The prisoner in the iron mask was standing there, waiting for them, and seemed relieved to see all of them still alive.

"Bring the dead and wounded behind our lines."

An eerie silence followed, broken suddenly by the King's voice racing down the corridor, reaching the musketeers and Phillippe, inside the mask.

"D'Artagnan!" he called, the echoes bouncing through the vault of the Bastille. "D'Artagnan! I am not angry with you. I know you are not a traitor– I knew you would lead me to them, and so you have!" He looked down the corridor with intense eyes as his soldiers watched him shout. He lowered his gaze to the blood-stained pitted stone floor and continued vociferating loudly,

"Lay down your weapons, and I will not punish you! You shall return to my service as if nothing had happened, or you shall live out your days in peace! Your friends I will give a swift and merciful execution if you surrender now!"

The words bounded down the long corridor, then silence. D'Artagnan's back was to his friends, his face turned toward the King and his men just in sight around the corner at the end of the tunnel. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Athos.

"My son, you should accept his offer, for we are dead men anyway," he said. Porthos sighed.

"He is right, d'Artagnan." Aramis nodded. There was no sound for a moment but then Phillippe stepped forward, speaking from behind the mask.

"Wait. Bargain me to Louis, for all your lives. I am the one he wants. You have done your best, and I thank you. Let me go, and let all you find peace."

Suddenly he seemed very old; his body sagged though his head remained erect in it's heavy iron encasement.

"No." D'Artagnan's voice shattered the silence. "No. Even if I could disown my friends, I could not disown my king. You are to me like a son– for I love your mother as if you had been my son– and your brother."

Suddenly the realization dawned on the men– the reason why d'Artagnan persisted in his undying devotion for this selfish king.

"You renounce Louis now?" Aramis said hopefully.

"No." D'Artagnan looked around at all of them. "My vows are always to defend and protect the King's person. I have simply discovered who truly is the king." He looked at Phillippe and embraced him, feeling the metal of the mask under his hands, as Phillippe gripped his back under his arms.

"I hated to see a man so ruthless. I never had a moment's pride in my calling until now," he whispered. Phillippe pulled away, tears shining in his eyes, and raised a grimy hand to wipe the captain's face for him, but stopped as he caught sight of it's filthy state.

D'Artagnan gave a shaky laugh and pressed the iron brow of the mask to his lips as he might have bestowed a kiss upon the forehead of a young daughter. Phillippe didn't seem to mind, for he closed his eyes, when suddenly a tremendous blow to the door at their backs recalled them to their situation. Athos spoke.

"Phillippe, we could not abandon you. You are to all of us both a beloved master, as you are our king, and a beloved son, as you replace the spirit of Raoul in our midst."

Aramis stared in shock at his friend who pronounced his son's name of his own accord for the first time in months. He turned to d'Artagnan.

"Those young musketeers, and de Guiche too– they are very young musketeers. They have been raised on legends of our deeds, weaned on them, inspired by them. They revere us– it is an advantage, don't you think?"

"Then why don't we charge them?" nobly put in Porthos, the pulse of the recent skirmishes beating high in his blood.

"I trained those men myself. They will stand and fight to the death. But if we must die, let it be this way." He drew his sword and erected it's tip. Aramis's sword was next out of it's scabbard, joining d'Artagnan's in the air, Porthos followed shortly after, along with Athos. They lowered their blades, still touching, to the ground as d'Artagnan said,

"One for all. All for one."

As the musketeers repeated the words, there was the sound of another sword leaving it's scabbard, and a fifth blade met theirs in the middle. They all looked up to behold Phillippe, smiling.

"I am honored to fight with you."

"Shall we have a war cry?" said Porthos hopefully, but d'Artagnan shook his head as they strode around the corner in great magnificence, tabards and cloaks swishing as in the old days of glory. For a brief moment the last charge of the Musketeers seemed a terrible reality– men going bravely to their deaths at the end of the corridor bristling with soldiers, their carbines lowered– and then it all plunged into the surrealism of battle they had experienced together so many times. Their legs took on a new life, propelling them forward with the strength and speed of youth, their rapiers leading the way.

"Present!" The King's voice echoed down the corridor, breaking the spell of initial awe the young musketeers felt as the beauty of the brave deed and also their shock at seeing running with them a young man in the tattered garb of a prisoner, his head encased in a mask of iron.

"Aim!"

"Magnificent valor," murmured de Guiche as he stood at the king's elbow, his musket lowered, not noticing the hard look on Louis face at the sight of his brother, living with the infliction he placed upon him. Anger rose within him.

"Fire!" The Musketeers continued to charge, and not one of the Royal Guard moved a finger.

"Shoot them!" the King shouted. "Shoot them!" Seizing de Guiche's musket, he pulled the trigger, and at the sound of the shot going off, the explosion of the first gun in the Bastille, the young musketeers one by one squeezed their eyes shut and pulled their triggers.

The powder in the weapons flashed and crashed as the musket balls flew down the hallway, sparking off the stone walls and floor, ricocheting and punching holes in clothing and in flesh, and filling the vault with smoke; and still the musketeers charged like the young men they once were and still were in spirit.


	13. Chapter 13

In the confines of the Bastille's stone corridors the noise was deafening, and the air was choked with the dense gray smoke of spent gunpowder. At last the final carbine was fired off and all was silent.

"Draw blades!" cried the King and they all did so, except de Guiche, straining their eyes through the smoke to see anything beyond it– slowly, near the floor shadows were glimpsed of movement, and all held their breath, wondering of they had not just been the means of killing the last legends of France, when painfully slowly, walking now, with no need to run, all four of the men emerged from the smoke. All were wounded, but all were very much alive and on their feet, their swords unsheathed but no longer erected.

The four musketeers, along with Phillippe moved slowly toward the wall of the young guards blades– _so be it to a fight to the death._

Just as one of the audacious young soldiers extended an arm to prick Aramis's chest with his tip, de Guiche yanked his sword from his scabbard and beat the blade down, crying,

"Stop!" The young musketeer turned to stare at him, as, ignoring the shock on the face of the King, he pushed his way through the men and stood before d'Artagnan, their naked blades exposed. For a moment no one was sure what would happen– Louis clenched his teeth, muttering,

"Run him through, de Guiche!" Suddenly, with a flick and a whishing noise, de Guiche saluted his captain. Then he turned and addressed his fellow musketeers.

"All my life, all I wanted to be... was him." He pointed at d'Artagnan, who bowed his head. As all the soldiers followed de Guiche's example and began saluting the men whom they had always, and now more than ever wanted to follow. Louis remained frozen. Then, as the young musketeers turned to each other and began to laugh and exclaim over the extraordinary show, the three musketeers and d'Artagnan also turned to each other and offered shaky smiles.

Then, Phillippe saw out of the tail of his eye the King shoving his way through his guards, his eyes aflame, drawing his dagger and leaping, falling toward them, his blade aimed at d'Artagnan's back.

"No!" Phillippe, without a second thought threw himself between the King and his Captain, reaching out to the King's shoulders and pushing him back forcefully against the wall. Just as d'Artagnan turned, he saw the King bounce against the stone, and thrust back again, his blade burying itself in Phillippe's unprotected breast.

"Phillippe!" he cried, catching the young man as his legs buckled and he fell backwards into the arms of his friends. The King remained standing, holding his bloody dagger, as all the musketeers, the young ones and the old ones, stared.

"You!" A hiss broke the silence as de Guiche leapt forward. "Atrocious! Vicious! Monstrous...!" He leapt for the King, overwhelming him in his fury, wrenching the dagger from his hand and flinging it behind him, beginning to grip his throat.

"De Guiche! Don't!" A hoarse voice came, causing him to release Louis and send him slumping, stunned, into the corner. "He is your... king..." Phillippe's voice came out of the mask.

De Guiche moved woodenly to the young man, who was being cradled in the laps of Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan, and looked for a long time at the prisoner in the iron mask. The blue eyes shining out from behind it were clouded with pain, the mouth contorted, but he whispered as the blood soaked the chest of his thin tattered shirt,

"He is the King."

The three musketeers and d'Artagnan riveted their face on the young man, so beloved, so kind and caring, who had led such an unfortunate life, gripping him as if by their will alone they would keep his life from leaking away. Aramis attempted to cut away the blood-soaked cloth from the wound to catch a glimpse of it, but Phillippe lifted one of his thin hands, and the abbè stopped, returning his hand, drenched in blood, to it's place, cradling his aching body on the stone floor of the Bastille. His voice came from inside the mask.

"All these years... I was a lost secret. But you found me... and hid all your loyalty– all your love... you were wearing the iron mask."

"Phillippe–" Athos began, but he said,

"Shhh. All my life, I dreamed that death would just happen– the way the mask happened. But this... this is better than I imagined... to die among friends–"

De Guiche turned away from the scene with a slow terrible resolve. He moved to Louis, who tried to rise, but found the point of his own poignard, still covered in his brother's blood, pointed at his own chest by one of his officers. De Guiche reached through the lace at the King's neck and ripped away the key on it's thin golden chain, hurrying back to the place where the prisoner lay surrounded by his friends.

He extended it to d'Artagnan, but he shook his head and nodded toward Athos. Athos slowly removed his hands from underneath Phillippe's head, and turning it tenderly on his lap, inserted the jeweled key into the lock. Phillippe coughed and a tremble went down his body, but Athos continued unlocking it as he eased the head back over and pried the grate from the fronts-piece of the mask, freeing Phillippe's face. He lifted the other piece out from underneath the head on his lap and lay it to one side, stroking the long light-brown hair away from the soiled brow.

"Tell– Christine... thank you–" he managed. "I thank her– I thank you all–" he coughed again, and Porthos dabbed the royal blood from his lips with the corner of his tabard, vowing inwardly never to wash it. Phillippe felt a heavy torpor spreading over his body; he could barely move his extremities which felt as if they were made of lead. But it was not an uncomfortable feeling, it was the sliding sensation as one feels when they are struggling to remain awake after a pleasantly tiring day. The only pain he felt was the intense sharp throbbing in his breast., and even that was growing less.

It seemed to Phillippe that he would not be needing his body anymore, so he was just deciding to leave it lying there on the stone floor of the prison, but he stopped for a moment to get used to the extraordinary feeling that his life was flowing inexhaustibly toward the existence of those great men around him. A shadow of a smile placed over his features.

"And tell Raoul– he... has the four best fathers... in the world. And my brother– I pray he repents of what he did to... your son– in taking Christine from him–"

"Hush, now, you are talking too much," began d'Artagnan gently, knowing he must be delirious to be speaking of Athos's dead son, but he gasped,

"I must, for I have not another chance. Tell him– tell Louis... I forgive him– and I love him. Tell my death not to my mother unless she asks. Farewell– dear friends..."

"Are you not sorry to die?" asked Aramis, in the true manner of a priest, leaning close.

"I am not." Phillippe's voice was fading fast. "For I go to a kingdom reigned by a king much better than I."

Aramis looked in confusion at his friends and when he looked back, something had snapped within the young man; his face was altered. It was pale and still. He was gone. His breath had fled from his body, and his blue eyes slowly closed as he gave a final sigh. The long thin hand that gripped Porthos's gradually relaxed and grew cool, his head became heavy on Athos's knees.

Tears were freely flowing down the faces of all as Athos bent and kissed the still mouth of the young man, as he wished he could have done to Raoul. But their grieving at the flight of France's purest soul was interrupted by the door at the opposite end of the corridor being burst violently open, and the governor of the Bastille began,

"Your majesty, are the traitors –" He stopped short, seeing the scene. Louis stood shakily to his feet and said, his voice unsteady,

"Take me back to the palace." His musketeers and the members of the Royal Guard slowly, and in reverent silence gathered up their arms, and with last looks behind them at the men who had not moved from their positions of the stone floor, exited the prison and their horses' hooves were soon heard departing toward the Palais Royale.

"He leaves us free–" d'Artagnan murmured, but no one answered. Aramis raised his face to M. Baisemeaux and composed himself.

"Where must we go to bury this man?" So far their backs had prevented a view of the prisoner's face.

"What is he, a soldier?" Baisemeaux said, leaning closer, suddenly catching a glimpse of the mask laying off to one side. Porthos discreetly threw the corner of his cloak over the face of the dead form of Phillippe and said, the tears running down his honest face,

"He was too good for this world." His heart was even too heavy within him to glance at Aramis in the pride of this clerical and pious observation. They could not say what he truly was, he who lay in his last sleep, pale and still.

After M. Baisemeaux moved away to guide the guards back to their duties, Aramis lifted the cloak and put a hand over Phillippe's closed eyes, and made the sign of the cross over him. Then he crossed his unmoving hands over his breast to hide the dark stain from sight and all looked almost peaceful. Then Athos stood and signaled to Porthos who lifted the limp body in his arms and bore it to the monastery hard by the Notre Dame cathedral, d'Artagnan and the others following through the dark streets of Paris in reverent silence.

Athos had the mask under his arm, and when Aramis asked in a whisper as they entered the courtyard of the abbey if he intended to bury him in it, Athos shook his head.

"T'would be an insult. He will lay, his face uncovered as God made it to be, and someday when the saints arise he will do so unencumbered." There was silence for a moment, and then, in a low voice, he continued, "We shall bury him in the country, near the place we trained him those three days, by the peach sapling."

Porthos entered the chamber Aramis indicated and lay Phillippe's lifeless body on the bed; it had already begun to grow stiff in it's position in the giant's arms, and he turned away, weeping as he tried to straighten the form. Athos silently did so, and Aramis pulled a blanket up to cover the blood-crusted chest and knelt by the bedside.

None of the musketeers moved in that chamber all the night, but kept a silent reverent vigil. Not an hour in that night passed but that conjured up to Aramis images of Phillippe's innocent face when he first set eyes on him, four years old at Noisy-la-Sec, tipping his face upwards and saying, "Who are you, monsieur?" and– "Her _majesty_, Monsieur Bishop? The _queen_?" ...images of his face, just as young and innocent as that day when he entered the room dressed in a clean decent outfit, just after being liberated from the prison and the mask... his tender heart and intelligent mind, asking questions during their training, and making observations about God and the world that ordinary men, to say nothing of a priest failed to recognize.

All through the night they fed themselves with memories, which the tranquil face of the young man upon the bed brought in crowds to their minds, some blooming and charming as that pure expression, some dark, dismal and icy as that face with it's eyes closed for all eternity.

D'Artagnan knew he should leave, he had duties to attend to, but though capable of standing, he was not capable of walking. It may be said that with his king's death, something died within him, as Athos's vitality was snuffed out by the death of Raoul. Yet somehow, sometime during the course of the night, his legs tore himself violently from the room, his breast heaving with sobs that rose in a whelming flood from within.

He walked quickly away from the monastery toward the palace, turning back once to glance at the dim light in one of the windows. The tower of the monastery shadowed by the cathedral seemed to draw itself up toward the moon, as before he had seen Phillippe draw himself up, and turn a smiling and awed face toward the heavens, a symbol of the life of this harmless, intelligent, naïve and honest young man, the noblest in spirit, and yet gone so early, more than half of his short life spent unlived in a prison cell.

Phillippe! Who seemed born to help others as they helped him, as if God had given him the strength of mind only for that purpose, who had willfully sacrificed his wishes for his friends's, to become a better king for France, for their sakes only, a pact of which they alone had drawn up, but which he alone had to pay the price, suffering by it's terrible results.

Phillippe! Who willingly and eagerly worked so hard to learn in three days not only how to live, but how to live as Louis, did he toil so long, both in body and in mind only to return to the Bastille again and lay himself down bleeding upon the cold stone floor?

He still without a doubt sleeps, lost, forgotten, beneath the sward upon which generations of shepherds now graze their sheep, beneath an ancient peach tree along the old road to Melun, and so many twining flowers and thick grasses grow, caressed by the gentle wind of the French countryside that no passer-by would ever have imagined this the resting place of a young man who led such a turbulent life with the candor of a child.

Athos, his face pale, his body chilled, stood motionless watching the first rays of sunlight filter into the window and down upon the bed where Phillippe's still form lay, the face covered by the blanket which Aramis had drawn up over it sometime during the night. The long lump looked so unlike the form of a once living human being that Athos, who had been confronted with death thousands of times upon the battlefield, turned away, his heart sinking within him, and seeming to weigh his whole body down into the floor. He looked back again– that was not Phillippe– Phillippe was the lively spirit that they all had grown to love in the short time they had known of his existence and enjoyed his curious presence, alive and active, not this still, lifeless corpse.

He turned and was about to leave the place and let Aramis and the Jesuit brothers perform their rituals in solitude when the figure of d'Artagnan again appeared in the doorway, looking fresh and ready to oversee the assignments of guard duty, and not at all as if he just missed an entire night's sleep.

Athos opened his mouth to ask him what his purpose was in returning when the musketeer stepped aside, his plumed hat sweeping out of the view through the doorway, revealing behind him the form of a young woman, heavy cloaked and hooded. She turned and gasped to see Athos, and he in turn recognized her in shock as Christine de la Vallière.

She was so unchanged that it seemed impossible to think back over the events of these months; her brown eyes were now large and fearful, traces of tears upon her cheeks, her loose hair mussed by her hood.

"I told her all and the King has permitted me to bring her here, ostensibly for confessions. I did not tell his majesty of our true errand."

Athos looked at his friend, wondering if it was right that he should have told the facts of Phillippe's sudden death to La Vallière, but she, without a word ran into Athos's embrace. He hugged her to him for a brief moment, and then she pulled away, trying her best not to cry and doing admirably. She moved toward the bed and at her approach Aramis rose. D'Artagnan and Athos left the room. The bishop lingered long enough to silently lift back blanket from Phillippe's bare face, but not far enough to expose the dagger mark on his chest as bespoken by his blood-stained shirt. Then he left her alone.

Christine gave a small gasp as she looked upon the still pale face of the young man– so like the King's even in this state, yet– as if death had done it's work in letting the pure spirit of Phillippe shine through– so unlike Louis's that she longed for life to return and reanimate this lifeless form so she could once again compare the likeness, wondering how she ever thought she could mistake one for the other.

Approaching with a faltering step, she slowly lay the back of her hand on his cold cheek and shuddered. Then the tears came, tears of shame at the repugnance she felt for the hollow shell of one of the best men that ever lived, that she now realized with slow discovery, she had loved, loved after Raoul. It was too late to tell him now, him that thought in his kind naïvete he was too old for love, and could not learn, but she did her best; she bent and kissed his still cold mouth, lip to lip.

Raising herself and brushing her hair behind her shoulder, she slowly drew off the simple ring, the plain gold circle that Athos had given to her, a last token of Raoul de Bragelonne, and drawing the clinging blanket back from the body's trunk, folding her lips tight as her brow corrugated and her tears fell upon him, she placed the ring in one of the half-shut hands, refolding them over his breast, a shiver running along her body at the stiff reticence of the form to be moved from it's final position.

The coldness of his hands still lingering on hers, she whispered something to him, drawing the blanket back up, first over his breast, and then over his head as well. Her voice was inaudible, but two hundred years later the great poet said just the words she wanted then:

"There, that is our secret, go to sleep;

Someday you will wake, and remember, and understand."

Then she fled. Phillippe was gone from her, but he lived still– lived on high, and would live forever in their hearts also.

And if, Aramis thought, while returning with several silent Jesuit brothers, by God's grace he could do any worthy deeds for Him and for France, they would be this King's work too, and he would tell him so when they met again.

Porthos had left Paris, d'Artagnan later found out, for Pierrefonds, to grieve in solitude, and as for Athos, there was no comfort to be found, as the song says, there was for him no balm in Gilead, nor any physician there.

He was desolate– as he was after Raoul's death; another had found his way into his heart and accepted his love, and now that one had left him as well. Desolation means isolation– Paris was full of people; they crowded about him and spoke to him vain words he did not hear. But Phillippe was not among them, nor Raoul, and that was all he knew or cared. He might search all of France and all the world over, and never find them among the living– never again.

When he returned to his house he looked up at the the few stars still shining in the early morning sky and all he thought of was the words: "Until the heavens be no more they shall not awake, neither be raised out of their sleep." What strange whim of fate brought those words back to him he knew not, but he knew this– not until all those worlds had passed away– not forever and ever– should he again hear that voice asking her a simple question, or see that face with it's smiling brown eyes that were the light of life to him.

_Until the heavens be no more_. The words echoed and re-echoed through his wearied brain in the silence of his house in which he sat alone. It was well that Aramis and d'Artagnan had their duties, and Porthos his wealth. But as for Athos– he was all alone, and in his mind lingered the pleading brown eyes of a silvery-blond haired girl who was yet surrounded by many and just as alone.

They had failed– and at what a terrible price!

**Don't hate me! Yes, I kill Phillippe! At this point I was trying to make it accurate according to history, and as there was rumor that the Man in the Iron Mask was actually several people, I was playing around with the idea of Phillippe dying and Raoul returning from the war and "becoming" the next Iron Mask to save himself from Louis' wrath. Anyway... (*sniff*)**


	14. Chapter 14

**A final random bit where Raoul makes it back to Paris...**

Now recollections of all these things rushed back upon Raoul as he stood in the shadows of the Paris alleyway, his eyes hungrily fixed upon the light shining in the upstairs chamber– the window he knew belonged to the one man who would still help him– who would not disbelieve his story.

He would not go to his father–he could not, he who must have been so shocked at the news of his death, and may have just now recovered and been able to find another joy in life. Christine he thought of with reluctance, his mind refusing to light upon the thought exactly, but making circular revolutions about it, fuzzily leaping away as a hand from touching a hot stove just as he neared the object of his meditations. None of his former comrades he knew well enough to go to them– but young Count de Guiche– de Guiche was different.

Just then the light in the window went out, and fixing his eyes on the spot, he advanced from the shadows slowly, and wearily began to climb, placing his toes in the cracks of the masonry and pulling himself up by whatever handholds he could find. Part of the way up he thought his arms would fail him, but he set his teeth and pressed on, gaining the ledge of the window and with some difficulty raising the sash. Then, bashing his knees on the casement, he fell ungracefully through the open aperture and and landed in an exhausted heap on the floor.

"Parbleau!" There was an exclamation of alarm and presently a light shone, revealing de Guiche, his hair mussed, his eyes starting from his head, standing in his shirt and staring at the intruder. Raoul raised his head and said,

"Do not cast about for your sword and pistols– it is I, a friend."

With a muttered exclamation, de Guiche drew closer, and then started back,

"_Corboef_! De Bragelonne! I am seeing a ghost. You have dropped out of heaven through my window– what do you want of me?"

"Does a ghost arrive caked with dirt from the African front, shot through with holes like a sieve? Covered with dry blood and exuding a combustible stench? At least allow your nose to tell you the unlovely truth, I am no ghost with such smells of men on this earth upon me."

"Raoul!" de Guiche grasped his arm as if not yet believing that his he would not rise into the air and vaporize. "How can it be that you are yet alive?"

"I do not know, nor does it matter. But I think to myself, I am a wanted man in Paris," de Guiche, fingering his mustache nodded emphatically, "–do I have in you a friend? Will you help keep the life Heaven confers upon me in my body where it seems to be wont to stay?"

"How could I be otherwise to one such as you!" de Guiche exclaimed, gently raising him up. I can never forget how you saved me from drowning at the ford on the road to _. _Eheu_, but how bad you look! What shall I do for you first? Food? A bath? Shall I fetch a physician?"

"Not a physician or surgeon, it seems fated that in spite of all I should live," murmured Raoul, barely coherent. "But a bath... and a change of clothes, and something to eat. I should only fall asleep if I did it in any other order, and t'would be a pity..."

He allowed himself to be conducted to a chair and and bereft of his boots, his stockings, and had his coat gingerly removed, dust falling in cascades from the brittle creases. Meanwhile de Guiche called a servant and had a bath drawn in an adjacent room, and he himself tugged it into his chamber, not permitting the servant a sight of his nocturnal visitor, and helped the young soldier out of his shirt and trousers, easing his aching body into the warm water.

De Guiche tried not to stare at his friends multiple wounds which must have caused him an amount of excruciating pain as the warm water loosened the dried blood, and he leaned his head back against the rim, saying,

"I am forever grateful to you."

The next thing he knew was he was being shaken gently, and then more roughly and de Guiche's voice said in his ear,

"De Bragelonne! Come, you must let me help you– you are going to sleep." Only half-conscious, basking in the feeling which accompanies slipping into the oblivion of deep sleep, he realized his friend had gently washed him, taking care about the ailing areas and dressed him a clean shirt, saying briskly as he held him on his feet and half-bore him to a chair,

"Now! You must eat something before I let you sleep. Nay! Not a word from you– eat this." He placed before him a steaming broth of wonderful flavor, a broiled partridge– left over from his own supper– and a chunk of soft bread. Raoul only managed to drink half the broth, feeling it spread warmth through his insides before his head sank forward onto the table, and de Guiche, shaking his head, arose and carried him, laying him in his own bed and stretching himself out upon the floor in his cloak, his hat under his head, the plume arranged skillfully so as not to bother his nose in the night, and neither stirred until morning.

Raoul awakened first and looked in surprise about him, at first believing himself at Blois, and then recalling with difficulty last night's events. He felt he could not move a muscle in his body, so he did not try, but made use of his eyes, looking about him at the sun streaming through the window, and soon sighted the count, asleep on the floor, rolled up in his cloak, his felt hat under his head in the true manner of a soldier.

He made an attempt to sit up and the moment he did so he regretted it as it wrenched a groan from his lungs and he slumped forward, his arms crossed upon his outstretched legs underneath the covers. The sound aroused his friend, who, sitting up, made all the gesture of a man arousing himself from sleep and then said,

"Ah, de Bragelonne! How did you sleep? Like a baby?"

"Like a log," murmured Raoul, endeavoring to straighten his spine and wincing at the effort. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and leaned his head back against the wall along which the bed was positioned as his friend washed in the basin and shaved before the glass. Towel in hand, he turned and regarded the young viscount with amusement.

"You look as if a bit of cleaning up wouldn't be so unpleasant yourself." Raoul put a hand to his cheeks and felt quite a bit more than the usual stubble of a young soldier and fingered in surprise– a bit messy, but indeed– a full beard. His surprise can be better understood when it is said that a Frenchman in those days never wore anything upon his face more than a mustache if he could possibly help it.

The count handed him a glass and Raoul hardly recognized himself in his greatly altered state– the shape of his lower face was so altered that he realized with a start for the first time the resemblance people so often exclaimed over between himself and his adoptive father.

Slowly he got to his feet, moaning and groaning as he did so, his body aching all over and his wounds burning and throbbing from their recent agitation. He leaned weakly against the wall and said he supposed he would just use his washing water from the night before, but upon gazing at the tub, changed his mind. De Guiche grinned at him, and with a grunt heaved the large tub off the floor and made his way to the window with it, pressing it with his body against the wall as he raised the glass, and then emptied it out the window, soaking the sill while he was at it.

He turned, setting the tub down with a clang and said as Raoul began,

"But what will the servant think when–"

"Let them think we drank it, or anything, for all I care. We can't have your presence discovered here, can we? We must be cautious."

"You are right, and I thank you for all the aid you are giving me," Raoul said as he scraped the blade over his lower face, revealing portions of skin beneath that hadn't seen the light of day for nearly a month. When he was finished, he turned, and asked,

"What has become of my uniform?"

"I put it to soak last night in your bath, and that, as you can imagine, saddened the state of the water still further, but your clothes are a bit cleaner now, though still torn in many places– here it is." He motioned to a chair upon which the uniform lay, now mostly dry. "And keep the shirt, I have several; Monsieur Grammont always keeps me well supplied– and your linen..." he trailed off. "It was so stained and soiled and crusted with dried blood, besides full of holes that it was not salvageable. I had to burn it."

**Sadly enough, my writing on this story ended there. Please review, and tell me what you think, if I should overhaul it and do a better job, if you have any ideas as for filling in the gaps... Thanks for reading!**


End file.
